title: Prevention of chronic rejection by donor-specific blood transfusion in a new model of chronic cardiac allograft rejection.
abstract: Chronic graft rejection is now a major barrier to the long-term survival of cardiac transplants. A major hallmark of chronic rejection is intimal thickening of arteries in the graft leading to vascular occlusion. Current animal models of chronic rejection generally utilize immunosuppression to prevent acute rejection of grafts disparate at major histocompatibility antigens or graft disparities involving minor histocompatibility antigens alone. In the present communication we describe a new model of chronic rejection involving grafting of PVG-R23 hearts into PVG-RT1(u) recipients. The R23 hearts, which differ from the RT1(u) recipients at class II MHC, are rejected with a chronic time course and demonstrate extensive severe vascular myointimal proliferation within the coronary arteries. Furthermore we demonstrate for the first time that donor-specific blood transfusion can prevent chronic rejection and the intimal thickening of the coronary arteries.
authors.affiliation: Immunology Research Group, School of Biological Sciences and Department of Pathology, University of Manchester, England.
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: I S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: C P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: I A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Cossens
authors.forename: E B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Bell
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001803:Blood Transfusion; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000473:pathology; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D014019:Tissue Donors; D017539:Tunica Intima / Q000473:pathology