Studies of orthotopic allografts of oral mucosa and skin across a histocompatibility barrier in a model system.
The mucosal allograft offers a reproducibile model for the characterization of the response of the oral mucosa to immunopathologic processes. Orthotopic allografts of oral mucosa or of skin were exchanged between pairs of unrelated rabbits known to be either matched or mismatched at the major histocompatibility locus (RLA). Rabbits with autografts of these tissues served as controls. The behavior of allografts of oral mucosa and of skin, although similar in many ways, showed marked differences in the morphology of the rejection reaction including more striking vascular damage and vascular occlusion in skin and in the longer persistence of granulocytes throughout the period of rejection in mucosal allografts. The rejection of matched allografts appeared morphologically similar to that of mismatched grafts but the time sequence was delayed. Morphological differences between the rejection reactions in allografts or oral mucosa and those of skin may result from differences in the expression of histocompatibility and tissue specific antigens in these tissues as well as other local factors such as the nature and distribution of mucosubstances of the connective tissue ground substance, the regional blood flow, and the absorption of salivary components including water in an oral wound.
D000818:Animals; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D006084:Graft Rejection; D006648:Histocompatibility; D008954:Models, Biological; D009061:Mouth Mucosa / Q000473:pathology / Q000637:transplantation*; D011817:Rabbits; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology; D016038:Skin Transplantation; D013997:Time Factors; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous