Arsalan Jalili
1,2 
, Abbas Hajifathali
3, Mozhdeh Mohammadian
3,4, Ghazaleh Sankanian
3, Maryam Sayahinouri
5,6, Mahmoud Dehghani Ghorbi
7, Elham Roshandel
3* , Nasser Aghdami
2,8* 1 Department of Applied Cell Sciences, Faculty of Basic Sciences and Advanced Medical Technologies, Royan Institute, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
2 Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology at Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran.
3 Hematopoietic Stem Cell Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
4 Department of Hematology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
5 Department of Immunology, Afzalipour Faculty of Medicine, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
6 Parvaz Research Ideas Supporter institute, Tehran, Iran.
7 Department of Internal Medicine, Imam Hossein Hospital, School of Medicine Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
8 Department of Regenerative Medicine, Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a life-saving therapy for various hematologic disorders. Due to the bone marrow suppression and its long recovery period, secondary infections, like cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Bar virus (EBV), and adenovirus (AdV), are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in HSCT cases. Drug resistance to the antiviral pharmacotherapies makes researchers develop adoptive T cell therapies like virus-specific T cell therapy. These studies have faced major challenges such as finding the most effective T cell expansion methods, isolating the expected subtype, defining the functionality of the end-cell population, product quality control, and clinical complications after the injection. This review discusses the viral infections after HSCT, T cells characteristics during chronic viral infection, application of virus-specific T cells (VSTs) for refractory infections, standard methods for producing VSTs and their limitation, clinical experiences on VSTs, focusing on outcomes and side effects that can be helpful in decision-making for patients and further researches.