Primary Objective

Several studies suggest that harnessing Natural Killer (NK) cell reactivity mediated through Killer cell Immunoglobulin-like Receptors (KIR) could reduce the risk of relapse after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Based on one promising model, information on KIR2DS1 and KIR3DL1 and their cognate ligands can be used to classify donors as KIR-advantageous or disadvantageous. Our study shows that the proposed model does not universally predict NK-mediated disease control. Deeper knowledge of NK-mediated alloreactivity is necessary to predict its contribution to graft-versus leukemia reactions and to eventually utilize KIR genotype information for donor selection.