Donor treatment with pegylated G-CSF augments the generation of IL-10-producing regulatory T cells and promotes transplantation tolerance

We investigated whether the protection from graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) afforded by donor treatment with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) could be enhanced by dose escalation. Donor treatment with human G-CSF prevented GVHD in the B6 → B6D2F1 murine model in a dose-dependent fashion, and murine G-CSF provided equivalent protection from GVHD at 10-fold lower doses. Donor pretreatment with a single dose of pegylated G-CSF (peg-G-CSF) prevented GVHD to a significantly greater extent than standard G-CSF (survival, 75% versus 11%, P < .001). Donor T cells from peg-G-CSF-treated donors failed to proliferate to alloantigen and inhibited the responses of control T cells in an interleukin 10 (IL-10)-dependent fashion in vitro. T cells from peg-G-CSF-treated IL-10-/- donors induced lethal GVHD; T cells from peg-G-CSF-treated wild-type (wt) donors promoted long-term survival. Whereas T cells from peg-G-CSF wt donors were able to regulate GVHD induced by T cells from control-treated donors, T cells from G-CSF-treated wt donors and peg-G-CSF-treated IL-10-/- donors did not prevent mortality. Thus, peg-G-CSF is markedly superior to standard G-CSF for the prevention of GVHD following allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT), due to the generation of IL-10-producing regulatory T cells. These data support prospective clinical trials of peg-G-CSF-mobilized allogeneic blood SCT. (Blood. 2004;103:3573-3581)