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. Biopsy mRNA profiles of 14 CD patients undergoing HSCT were generated by deep sequencing, using HiSeq-4000 platform (Illumina, San Diego, CA).