The effect of erythropoietin administration on murine bone marrow chimeras

All patients develop anemia after autologous or allogeneic bone marrow transplantation and red blood cell transfusion is almost always required in the post-transplant period. Recently Epo therapy has been employed in the setting of bone marrow transplantation. As bone marrow transplant patients typically suffer from malignancies and are immunocompromised, further immunosuppression should be avoided. Recent reports have suggested that Epo may modulate immune response. We have studied the effects of Epo on immune response in murine bone marrow chimeras. Epo administration resulted in an increase in hematocrit. There was no significant alteration in lymphocyte numbers, although a shift in lymphocytes toward T cell predominance was observed. Epo administration resulted in enhanced cell proliferation in response to T and B cell mitogens, although no alteration in cytotoxicity or natural killer cell activity was observed. No example of Epo-induced impaired immunity was observed.