2017 Volume 52 Issue 6 Pages 489-494
Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) -based technologies provide new opportunities in regenerative medicine to generate grafts for transplantation. The banking of iPSCs from donors with homozygous HLA haplotypes is planned in Japan, aiming to reduce immune reaction. Even though HLA-homozygous iPSCs are used, immune suppression would be inevitable because of minor antigen mismatches. A couple of studies concerning such immunological issues have been reported, including gene modification and immune regulatory cell induction from PSCs. Meanwhile, our research group has recently examined the concept that the recipient immune response against PSC-derived graft can be regulated by administration of immunoregulatory cells generated from the same PSC. This therapeutic approach prolonged the survival of PSC-derived allograft by suppressing host T cell proliferation and antibody production by B cells.
iPSC-based technologies provide us numerous benefits; however, considering their safety from an immunological point of view should be of great importance for the development and clinical translation of this novel techniques.
