Given the success of
Volume I of this Research Topic, we are pleased to announce the launch of “Novel Therapies for Tolerance Induction in Solid Organ and Bone Marrow Transplantation: Volume II”.
Transplantation represents the treatment of choice for end-stage solid organ failure. The dissection of the mechanisms regulating host immune response toward foreign graft has led to the introduction into clinical practice of effective T-cell targeting immunosuppressive agents, which have abated the risk of acute rejection and increased the 1-year graft survival above 90%. However, current immunosuppressive agents are less effective in preventing chronic allograft rejection and are associated with an unacceptably high risk of multiple side effects, including infections and malignancy. Thus, efforts of the transplant community have been pursued to explore novel strategies that would allow minimization or even withdrawal of maintenance immunosuppression, eventually leading to transplant tolerance.
Cellular therapies have been proposed as promising “live” drugs with formidable tolerance-inducing potential being able to target the anti-donor immune response at different cellular levels and to trigger natural mechanisms of dominant tolerance. Different types of cells and different approaches have been proposed and results from the first clinical trials are emerging. For example, infusion of recipient T regulatory or dendritic cells that have been successfully used in solid organ transplantation. In addition to novel cellular therapies, this Research Topic aims at shedding new light on other emerging treatments which include the use of immune-modulatory treatment of donor organs pre or peri-operatively, with the aim to reduce ischemia-reperfusion injury and its associated inflammatory response, including the use of anti-cytokine therapies in the context of bone marrow transplantation.
The aim of this Research Topics is to gather the latest insights on cellular and emerging novel therapies for tolerance induction toward solid organ and bone marrow transplantation, highlighting pre-clinical and clinical achievements and hurdles that need to be overcome.
We welcome authors to submit Original Research, Review, Clinical Trial and Case Report articles focusing on, but not limited to, the following subtopics:
1. Hematopoietic stem cells and chimerism induction
2. Natural and donor-graft specific regulatory T cells
3. CAR Tregs
4. Mesenchymal stromal cells
5. Tolerogenic dendritic cells
6. Regulatory macrophages
7. Apoptotic donor cells
8. The role and modulation of tissue-resident passenger leucocytes
9. The use of biologicals or cytokines to modulate rejection and graft-versus-host disease