TY - JOUR AU - Myriam Foglietta, AU - Barbara Castella, AU - Sara Mariani, AU - Marta Coscia, AU - Laura Godio, AU - Riccardo Ferracini, AU - Marina Ruggeri, AU - Vittorio Muccio, AU - Paola Omedé, AU - Antonio Palumbo, AU - Mario Boccadoro, AU - Massimo Massaia, PY - 2014/09/30 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - The bone marrow of myeloma patients is steadily inhabited by a normal-sized pool of functional regulatory T cells irrespectiveof the disease status JF - Haematologica JA - haematol VL - 99 IS - 10 SE - Articles DO - 10.3324/haematol.2014.105866 UR - https://haematologica.org/article/view/7170 SP - 1605-1610 AB - Conflicting data have been reported about the frequency and function of regulatory T cells in multiple myeloma. Most studies have investigated peripheral blood rather than bone marrow Tregs and side-by-side comparisons with bone marrow from healthy donors have still not been made. In this study, we show that regulatory T-cells total count, subset distribution, and expression of chemokine receptors are similar in the bone marrow of myeloma patients and healthy donors. Regulatory T cells are not recruited by myeloma cells in the bone marrow and their counts are unaffected by the tumor burden and the disease status. The diversity of T-cell receptor repertoire is highly preserved ensuring broad reactivity and effective suppressor function. Our results indicate that regulatory T cells may not be the main players of immunological tolerance to myeloma cells under base-line conditions, but their fully preserved immune competence may promote their inadvertent activation and blunt T-cell driven anti-myeloma immune interventions even after myeloma cells have successfully been cleared by chemotherapy. ER -