Microrna-17-92 Cluster: Novel Target for Controlling Gvhd While Preserving GVL Effect

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) remains a life threatening complication after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT). Donor T cells are the key pathogenic effectors in the induction of GVHD. MicroRNAs (miRs) have been shown to play an important role in orchestrating immune response, among which miR-17-92 cluster is one of the best characterized miR clusters that encodes 6 miRs including 17, 18a, 19a, 20a, 19b-1 and 92-1. Although regulatory functions of miR-17-92 cluster have been elaborated in a variety of immune responses including anti-infection, anti-tumor, and autoimmunity, the role of this miR cluster in the modulation of T-cell response to alloantigens and the development of GVHD has not been explored previously. Based on the previous report that miR-17-92 promotes Th1 responses and inhibits induced regulatory T-cell (iTreg) differentiation in vitro, we hypothesized that blockade of miR-17-92 would constrain T-cell alloresponse and attenuate GVHD.

To evaluate the function of miR-17-92 on T-cell alloresponse, we utilized the mice with miR-17-92 conditional knock-out (KO) on T cells as donors, and compared the alloresponse of WT and KO T cells after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo-BMT). We observed that KO T cells had substantially reduced ability to proliferate and produce IFNγ as compared to WT counterparts 4 days after cell transfer. Interestingly, CD4 but not CD8 KO T cells had increased cell death in the population of fast-dividing T cells. Thus, miR-17-92 cluster promotes activation and expansion of both CD4 and CD8 T cells, and inhibits activation-induced cell death of CD4 but not CD8 T cells at the early stage of alloresponse in vivo. We further evaluated the role of miR-17-92 on T cells in the development of acute GVHD in a fully MHC-mismatched BMT model. In sharp contrast to WT T cells that caused severe GVHD and resulted in 100% mortality of the recipients, KO T cells were impaired in causing severe GVHD reflected by mild clinical manifestations and no mortality. These observations were extended to MHC-matched but minor antigen-mismatched as well as haploidentical BMT models that are more clinically relevant. We next addressed the critical question whether T cells deficient for miR-17-92 are still capable of mediating graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect. Using A20 lymphoma and P815 mastocytoma cell lines, we demonstrated that the KO T cells essentially retained the GVL activity in MHC-mismatched and haploidentical BMT model, respectively.

Mechanistic studies revealed that miR-17-92 promoted CD4 T-cell proliferation, survival, migration to target organs, and Th1-differentiation, but reduced Th2-differentiation and iTreg generation. However, miR-17-92 had less impact on CD8 T-cell proliferation, survival, IFNγ production, and cytolytic activity reflected by granzyme B and CD107a expression. Moreover, miR-17-92 negatively regulated TNFα production by both CD4 and CD8 T cells. We therefore conclude that miR-17-92 cluster is required for T cells to induce severe GVHD, but it is dispensable for T cells to mediate the GVL effect.

To increase translational potential of our findings, we designed the locked nucleic acid (LNA) antagomirs specific for miR-17 or miR-19, which have been reported to be the key members in this cluster. We observed that the treatment with anti-miR-17 significantly inhibited T-cell expansion and IFNγ production in response to alloantigen in vivo, and anti-miR-19 was more effective. Furthermore, our ongoing experiment showed the treatment with anti-miR-17 or anti-miR-19 was able to considerably attenuate the severity of GVHD as compared to scrambled antagomir in a MHC-mismatched BMT model.

Taken together, the current work reveals that miR-17-92 cluster is essential for T-cell alloresponse and GVHD development, and validates miR-17-92 cluster as promising therapeutic target for the control of GVHD while preserving GVL activity in allogeneic HCT.

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