Life Sciences Commons^™

Defining And Manipulating The Function Of Protein Kinase C-Theta In Graft Versus Host Responses, Emrah Ilker Ozay

Doctoral Dissertations

Immune-mediated tissue destruction of graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) remains a major barrier to greater use of bone marrow transplantation (BMT). It is found that alloreactive donor-derived T cells activated through their T cell receptor (TCR) are primarily the major contributors to the immunopathobiology of GvHD. Protein kinase C-theta (PKCtheta), a crucial, early downstream kinase of TCR signaling, enhances T cell activation, thereby promoting alloreactive responses such as differentiation, proliferation, migration, and cytotoxicity. Thus, delineating specific ways of interfering PKCtheta signaling is beneficial for the GvHD treatment or prevention. Here, we investigated the molecular mechanisms driven by PKCtheta in T cells by …