Differences in tissue immune cell populations following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in Crohn's disease patients

Treatment of severely refractory Crohn's disease (CD) patients remains a clinical challenge. Recent studies show the efficacy of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) in these severely compromised patients. HSCT is thought to eliminate auto-reactive cells; however, no specific studies of immune reconstitution in CD patients are available. We studied a group of CD patients receiving autologous HSCT, with 50% of them achieving endoscopic drug-free remission. To elucidate the mechanism driving efficacy, we studied changes in the immune cell composition in tissue induced by HSCT. Overall design: Biopsy mRNA profiles of 14 CD patients undergoing HSCT were generated by deep sequencing, using HiSeq-4000 platform (Illumina, San Diego, CA).