THE EFFECT OF ERYTHROPOIETIN ADMINISTRATION ON MURINE BONE-MARROW CHIMERAS

All patients develop anemia after autologous or allogeneic bone marrow transplantation and red blood cell transfusion is almost always requi red in the post-transplant period. Recently Epo therapy has been emplo yed in the setting of bone marrow transplantation [1,2]. As bone marro w transplant patients typically suffer from malignancies and are immun ocompromised, further immunosuppression should be avoided. Recent repo rts have suggested that Epo may modulate immune response. We have stud ied the effects of Epo on immune response in murine bone marrow chimer as. Epo administration resulted in an increase in hematocrit. There wa s no significant alteration in lymphocyte numbers, although a shift in lymphocytes toward T cell predominance was observed. Epo administrati on resulted in enhanced cell proliferation in response to T and B cell mitogens, although no alteration in cytotoxicity or natural killer ce ll activity was observed. No example of Epo-induced impaired immunity was observed.