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Tanning before transplant: lancing the Langerhans cell

Nature Medicine volume 10, pages 451–452 (2004)Cite this article

Ultraviolet radiation thwarts graft-versus-host disease in mice after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The treatment kills host Langerhans cells in the skin, which contribute to this deadly disease (pages 510–517).

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation would be much more widely used in the clinic if graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) could be eliminated. In this condition, which afflicts 30–50% of all transplant recipients, donor T lymphocytes attack recipient cells in the skin, liver, gastrointestinal epithelium and elsewhere. Our understanding of the trigger for GVHD is at best imprecise, despite recent advances implicating host antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in GVHD induction1,2.

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Figure 1: Catching some rays.

Erin Boyle

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  1. Department of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Maloney 510, 3600 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Stephen G Emerson

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  1. Stephen G Emerson
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Emerson, S. Tanning before transplant: lancing the Langerhans cell. Nat Med 10, 451–452 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0504-451

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0504-451

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