New tools in assessing immune reconstitution after hematopoietic stem celltransplantation

Background and Objectives : Immune functions are impaired after allogeneic stem cell transplantation for several months depending on the age of the re cipient, initial pathology, degree of HLA and minor histocompatibility anti gens mismatches, origin and manipulation of the graft (unmanipulated or T-c ell depleted bone marrow transplantation cord blood) and post-transplantati on events (acute or chronic graft-versus-host disease, relapse and infectio us complications). Material and Methods, Results and Conclusion : In addition to lpmphocyte ph enotyping and functional assays, new tools are now available to monitor spe cific aspects of the immune response in the follow-up of hematopoietic stem eel transplantation reconstitution of T cell diversity (spectratyping or I mmunoscope), thymic function (TREC or "T-cell receptor rearrangement excisi on DNA circles") and antigen-specific T cell responses (HLA tetramers).