Establishment of Donor Chimerism Using Allogeneic Bone Marrow with AMP Cell Coinfusion

Injuries resulting in the loss of a limb or the face can inflict long-lasting physical and psychological trauma. This type of injury has increased in the military population because of the current dangers on the modern battlefield. The body armor worn by our combatants protects the vital organs but leaves the limbs and face exposed, leading to more injuries to those areas. Also, improvements in the care of the wounded on the battlefield are saving the lives of those who would have died of their wounds even a decade ago. Traumatic loss of the limb also occurs fairly often in the civilian population from motor vehicle accidents, farming, and industrial accidents. One medical procedure that has been pioneered in the last several years is transplanting hands, arms, and faces from deceased donors to the injured patient. The biggest problem with these transplants is that the drugs that the patients have to take to stop their bodies from rejecting the hand or face are toxic and are not 100% effective at stopping the rejection.

Amnion-derived multipotent cells (AMP cells) are cells from the placenta collected after birth. AMP cells have been shown to stop the rejection of bone marrow cells, which in turn stops the rejection of a skin transplant in mice. We propose to use this cell in a monkey skin transplant model. Basically, the AMP cell is mixed with bone marrow cell from a donor animal and then injected into the host animal. A patch of skin is then removed from the donor animal and transplanted onto the host and then the donor skin is checked for rejection.

This work will be used to develop a method to transplant any organ or tissue. Ultimately, it will help patients who need any type of transplant like a kidney or a heart or a diabetic that receives an islet cell transplant to cure the diabetes. It will also allow for the treatment of people with aplastic anemia or cancer and who receive chemotherapy and radiation treatment requiring a bone marrow transplant.

This technology will make experimental procedures like hand or face transplants part of the normal practice of medicine and will help to leap the entire field forward.