Intrathymic inoculation of liver specific antigen alleviates liver transplant rejection
Jia, C.; Zheng, S.; Zhu, Y.
Chinese Medical Sciences Journal 19(1): 38-43
2004
ISSN/ISBN: 1001-9294 PMID: 15104223 Document Number: 575034
Objective To study the effects of liver specific antigen (LSA) on liver allotransplantation rejection. Methods Orthotopic liver transplantation was performed in this study. Group I : syngeneic control (Wistar-to-Wistar); Group II : acute rejection (SD-to-Wistar). Group III : thymic inoculation of SD rat LSA day 7 before transplantation. The observation of general condition and survival time, rejection grades and the NF-kappaB activity of splenocytes were used to analyze severity of acute rejection and immune state of animals in different groups. Results The general condition of group I was fair post transplantation with no sign of rejection. All recipients of group II died within days 9 to 13 post transplantation with median survival time of 10.7 +/- 1.37 days. As for group III, 5 out of 6 recipients survived for a long period with remarkably better general condition than that of group H. Its rejection grades were significantly lower than group II (P < 0.05). NF-kappaB activity was only detected in group I between days 5 and 7 after transplantation, whereas high activity of NF-kappaB was detected at all points in group II and low NF-kappaB activity was detected in group III which was significantly lower than that of group II (P < 0.05). Conclusions LSA is an important transplantation antigen directly involved in the immunorejection of liver transplantation. Intrathymic inoculation of LSA can alleviate the rejection of liver allotransplantation, grafts survive for a period of time thereby, allowing a novel way to liver transplantation immunotolerance.