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Umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplants (UCBTs) are becoming increasingly common in the treatment of a variety of hematologic and nonhematologic conditions. The T cells from UCB are naïve T cells, which have not yet been exposed to antigens and therefore do not contain T cells with specific immune functions against viruses. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections occur in more than 80% of patients after UCBT compared to other types of transplantation. Anti-CMV medications are currently restricted, with ganciclovir, foscarnet, and valganciclovir being the most common in China; however, with limited efficacy and considerable side effects, all these drugs are susceptible to viral resistance. In recent years, cytomegalovirus-specific T cells (CMVST) have advanced the treatment of viral infections in immunodeficient patients. CMVST usually uses the same donor as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. CMVST should be administered to UCBT patients because of the absence of donors after UCBT. In China, there is no report on the use of CMVST to treat CMV infection after UCBT, and foreign reports are also limited. This paper reported a 20-year-old male patient with acute myeloid leukemia who developed cytomegalovirus retinitis (CMVR) after umbilical cord blood transplantation. After ineffective viral treatment, he was treated with a third-party donor CMVST and was successfully transformed into CMV nucleic acid negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a new human infectious disease. The etiology for this outbreak is a novel coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Thus far, related research on COVID-19 is still in preliminary stage. This paper summarized the latest outcomes of corresponding study from Chinese centers and clarified the hematopoietic abnormality caused by SARS-CoV-2 and potential mechanism. Lymphopenia was common in the early stage after the onset of COVID-19. A significant decrease was observed in peripheral CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. As the illness progressed, neutrophilia emerged in several cases, and patients with severe critical pulmonary conditions showed higher neutrophils than common type. Thrombocytopenia was resulting from the consumption and/or the reduced production of platelets in damaged lungs. Anemia was not observed notably, but the decrease in hemoglobin was frequent. The activation of monocyte-macrophage system aggravates the immune damage of lung and other tissues, which leads to the increase of D-dimer, prothrombin time, and platelet consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ChiCTR-TRC-11001263 study was the first large-scale double-blind randomized placebo-controlled traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) and adefovir (ADV) antihepatitis B virus (HBV) infection trial in the world. A total of 560 hepatitis B e antigen- (HBeAg-) positive Chinese patients with chronical HBV were randomly classified, in 1 : 1 ratio, into two groups: experimental group (EXG) receiving TCMs + ADV and controlled group (CTG) receiving ADV + TCM-placebo treatment for 48 weeks. This paper introduces two models to model and simulate the evolutions of dynamics for the complete-response patients and the poor-response patients in EXG and CTG, respectively. The stimulated mean HBV DNA and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels were close to the patients' experimental data. Analysis and simulations suggest that the activated patients' immune functions by TCMs + ADV may not only clear infected hepatocytes, but also clear HBV, which made the complete-response patients' mean serum HBV DNA levels in EXG reduce rapidly 12 weeks' earlier than the ones in CTG. One can assume that both the TCMs and ADV have the function of preventing complete-response patients' infected hepatocytes from being injured by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs); the patients' activated immune cells may also block HBV replications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are subsets of T cells that are specifically dedicated to controlling immune responses. It has been established that Tregs play a key role in regulating autoimmune disease, allergy, cancer, infectious disease, and in the induction of transplantation tolerance. The latest progress in the development, function, mechanism of action, and homeostasis of regulatory T cells, and their translation to the clinic were presented at the International Conference on Regulatory T Cells and Clinical Application in Human Diseases in Beijing on 25–27 October 2008 (China Tregs 2008). In this Special Issue of International Immunopharmacology, several papers submitted to the China Tregs 2008 will highlight some of the recent advances in the biology of regulatory T cells and current strategies to translate regulatory T cells into the clinic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]