Cellular and humoral immune response evaluation after cell therapy treatment for chronic ischemic heart disease

• Grant number: 09/17656-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2010
• End date: August 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Immunology - Cellular Immunology
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Elias Kalil Filho
• Grantee: Jorge Elias Kalil Filho
• Host Institution: Instituto do Coração Professor Euryclides de Jesus Zerbini (INCOR). Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da USP (HCFMUSP). Secretaria da Saúde (São Paulo - Estado). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease remains a major worldwide medical problem. Current pharmacological therapy and revascularization procedures fail to regenerate dead myocardium and the vascular system. Given the need to overcome the limitations of these treatments, cell-based therapy has emerged in the past decades as a novel regenerative therapy for ischemic heart disease. Although progenitor cells were initially hypothesized to regenerate injured tissue by differentiating into functional cardiomyocytes, additional investigations have revealed other complementary abilities of these cells including production of protective growth factors, anti-inflammatory cytokines and promotion of neoangiogenesis. A project designed to test whether cell therapy using bone marrow mononuclear cells may serve as an adjunctive therapy to patients undergoing surgical myocardial revascularization for severe ischemic heart disease in being developed at InCor (Heart institute, São Paulo University medical school). However it is not know if cell therapy modulates the immunological profile observed in this pathological condition. In order to evaluate cellular and humoral immune response in these patients, blood samples are going to be collected before, 30, 90, 180 and 360 days after treatment (revascularization surgery followed by autologos bone marrow mononuclear cells transplant. Then we will evaluate the presence of auto antibodies (anti HSP60 and anti cardiac myosin) in the serum of the patients and also the systemic T and B lymphocytes repertoire using the CDR3 length spectratyping methodology. The immune response to different stimuli will be determined in cell culture experiments. These results might help us understand the immunological mechanism involved in this pathology and the changes that follow the cell-based therapy. (AU)