Studies addressing the mechanism of anti-asialo GM1 prevention of graft-versus-host disease due to minor histocompatibility antigenic differences.

In mice, as in humans, lethal graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) with skin involvement often occurs in immunoincompetent recipients of donor hematopoietic cells in spite of matching at major histocompatibility loci and nonreactivity in mixed lymphocyte culture, if donor and recipient are disparate at several minor histocompatibility loci. In mice, both death and skin disease can be prevented by the use of an antiserum containing antibodies to a cell surface glycolipid, asialo GM1 (ASGM1). Because treatment of only the recipients with anti-asialo GM1 substantially reduces the subsequent proliferation of infused donor lymphoid cells, we infer that anti-asialo GM1 interferes with a host minor-antigen-presenting cell, so that donor lymphocytes fail to see minor host antigens as immunogenic. Of the tissues examined by immunofluorescence microscopy, ASGM1 was found on the epidermal Thy-1+ dendritic cell, on dendritic cells in the thymus, and as has been previously described, on lung and spleen cells. Following the intravenous administration of anti-asialo GM1, only the spleen showed an obvious change, losing approximately 80% of its ASGM1 + cells. Further analysis of spleen cells bearing ASGM1 may better define the phenotype of the inferred minor antigen-presenting cell and lead to a method of improving the outcome of human bone marrow transplantation.