Heparanase promotes engraftment and prevents graft versus host disease in stem cell transplantation

Heparanase, endoglycosidase that cleaves heparan sulfate side chains of heparan sulfate proteoglycans, plays important roles in cancer metastasis, angiogenesis and inflammation.

Applying a mouse model of bone marrow transplantation and transgenic mice over-expressing heparanase, we evaluated the effect of heparanase on the engraftment process and the development of graft-versus-host disease.

Analysis of F1 mice undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation from C57BL/6 mice demonstrated a better and faster engraftment in mice receiving cells from donors that were pretreated with heparanase. Moreover, heparanase treated recipient F1 mice showed only a mild appearance of graft-versus-host disease and died 27 days post transplantation while control mice rapidly developed signs of graft-versus-host disease (i.e., weight loss, hair loss, diarrhea) and died after 12 days, indicating a protective effect of heparanase against graft-versus-host disease. Similarly, we applied transgenic mice over-expressing heparanase in most tissues as the recipients of BMT from C57BL/6 mice. Monitoring clinical parameters of graft-versus-host disease, the transgenic mice showed 100% survival on day 40 post transplantation, compared to only 50% survival on day 14, in the control group. In vitro and in vivo studies revealed that heparanase inhibited T cell function and activation through modulation of their cytokine repertoire, indicated by a marked increase in the levels of Interleukin-4, Interleukin-6 and Interleukin-10, and a parallel decrease in Interleukin-12, tumor necrosis factor-alfa and interferon-gamma. Using point mutated inactive enzyme, we found that the shift in cytokine profile was independent of heparanase enzymatic activity.

Our results indicate a significant role of heparanase in bone marrow transplantation biology, facilitating engraftment and suppressing graft-versus-host disease, apparently through an effect on T cell activation and cytokine production pattern.