Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Apr 14;4(7):1350-1356.
doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2019001284.

Investigation of donor KIR content and matching in children undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation for acute leukemia

Michael R Verneris  1 , Jeffrey S Miller  2 , Katherine C Hsu  3 , Tao Wang  4   5 , Jennifer A Sees  6 , Sophie Paczesny  7 , Hemalatha Rangarajan  8 , Dean A Lee  9 , Stephen R Spellman  6 , Stephanie J Lee  4   10
Affiliations

Investigation of donor KIR content and matching in children undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation for acute leukemia

Michael R Verneris et al. Blood Adv. .

Abstract

Multiple models of donor killer immunoglobulin receptor (KIR) alloreactivity or KIR genotype have been reported to be protective against leukemia relapse after allogeneic transplantation. However, few studies have addressed this topic in the pediatric population. Here, we assessed the outcomes of allogeneic transplantation in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL; n = 372) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML; n = 344) who received unrelated donor (URD) transplantation and were reported to the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) from 2005 to 2016. As expected in this pediatric population, most patients underwent myeloablative conditioning while in remission and with bone marrow as a stem cell source. We tested KIR ligand mismatch, KIR gene content (centromeric [Cen] B), KIR2DS1 mismatching, and Cen B/telomeric A using Cox regression models and found that none were significantly associated with either relapse or disease-free survival when considering the entire cohort of patients (ALL and AML), AML, or ALL separately. Moreover, there was no significant association with outcomes in the in vivo T-cell-depleted (ie, serotherapy) cohort. This study, which is the largest analysis of donor KIR in the pediatric acute leukemia population, does not support the use of KIR in the selection of URDs for children undergoing T-replete transplantation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict-of-interest disclosure: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Adjusted cumulative incidence of relapse.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Parham P. MHC class I molecules and KIRs in human history, health and survival. Nat Rev Immunol. 2005;5(3):201-214. - PubMed
    1. Lanier LL. NK cell receptors. Annu Rev Immunol. 1998;16:359-393. - PubMed
    1. Ruggeri L, Capanni M, Urbani E, et al. . Effectiveness of donor natural killer cell alloreactivity in mismatched hematopoietic transplants. Science. 2002;295(5562):2097-2100. - PubMed
    1. Giebel S, Locatelli F, Lamparelli T, et al. . Survival advantage with KIR ligand incompatibility in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from unrelated donors. Blood. 2003;102(3):814-819. - PubMed
    1. Davies SM, Ruggieri L, DeFor T, et al. . Evaluation of KIR ligand incompatibility in mismatched unrelated donor hematopoietic transplants. Killer immunoglobulin-like receptor. Blood. 2002;100(10):3825-3827. - PubMed