Immunogenicity of rat renal allograft nephron components in vivo. Lack of correlation between MHC expression and immunogenic potential.
Cultured rat nephron components--i.e., tubular cells, glomerular mesangial cells, and glomerular epithelial cells--were compared with cultured rat heart endothelial cells for their in vivo immunogenicity using the primed rejection assay (PRA). Gamma-interferon (gIFN) was used to regulate the class I and class II MHC antigen expression of the cells tested. The heart endothelial cells proved to be the only cell type capable of inducing a maximal rejection response in the native state. This was achieved with a cell number of 10(6) when the survival of a subsequent heart allograft from a relevant donor was reduced from 5 to 3 days. All kidney nephron components proved to be immunogenic in PRA but to a far lesser extent than the endothelial cells. A reduction of graft survival from 5 to 4 days was achieved with a cell number of 10(6) cells, and no immunogenic effect (with the exception of mesangial cells contaminated by a small number of macrophages) was observed in smaller cell numbers. The gIFN-treated endothelial cells were more potent than untreated endothelial cells. They reduced the graft survival to 4 days with a cell number of 10(3) and caused a maximal reduction of the survival to 3 days with a cell number of 10(5). The nephron components failed to increase their immunogenicity after 3-day gIFN treatment, regardless of a high increase in their class I and class II expression rates. The study suggests that, in contrast to the endothelial cells, none of the nephron components are able to act as an antigen-presenting cell on their own.
Halttunen
J
J
Transplantation Laboratory, University of Helsinki, Finland.
D000818:Animals; D000938:Antigen-Presenting Cells / Q000502:physiology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D006084:Graft Rejection; D015395:Histocompatibility Antigens Class I / Q000276:immunology*; D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II / Q000276:immunology*; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000494:pharmacology; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D009399:Nephrons / Q000276:immunology*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous
D015395:Histocompatibility Antigens Class I; D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II; D007371:Interferon-gamma