Immunologic enhancement of rat renal allografts. III. Immunopathologic lesions and rejection in long-surviving passively enhanced grafts.
Immunologic enhancement of renal allografts from (Lewis times Brown Norway) F1 to Lewis rats was achieved by administering a single dose of antidonor serum at the time of transplantation. A series of grafts functioning for 1 to 4 months after transplantation were examined by light and immunofluorescence microscopy to evaluate the long-term protective effects of the enhancing serum and to determine if previously unobserved lesions appeared in long survivors. Despite the absence of detectable circulating cytotoxic alloantibody, long-term allografts showed necrotizing glomerular and arterial lesions which resembled those seen in acutely rejecting grafts and were compatible with humoral rejection. Thus, in this model, there is a late decline in the ability of passive enhancement to inhibit humoral rejection. Long-term grafts also developed tubular lesions with deposition of immunoglobulin and complement on the tubular basement membranes (TBM). Anti-TBM antibodies were demonstrated in recipients' sera and found to be organ specific but not major histocompatibility antigen or species specific. This tubular lesion is therefore a unique form of allograft injury in which the immune response is directed against tissue antigen(s) which are distinct from the major histocompatibility antigens that induce rejection.
D000818:Animals; D001158:Arteries / Q000276:immunology; D001284:Atrophy; D001806:Blood Urea Nitrogen; D003176:Complement C3 / Q000378:metabolism; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique; D006084:Graft Rejection; D007111:Immunity, Cellular; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000378:metabolism; D007668:Kidney / Q000276:immunology; D007672:Kidney Cortex / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology; D007673:Kidney Cortex Necrosis / Q000473:pathology; D007678:Kidney Glomerulus / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D007684:Kidney Tubules / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology; D051381:Rats; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous
D003176:Complement C3; D007074:Immunoglobulin G