title: Peripheral blood allogeneic microchimerism in lung and cardiac allograft recipients.
abstract: We have been investigating two parameters, donor antigen-specific hyporeactivity and peripheral blood allogeneic microchimerism, to determine whether these parameters will predict a chronic rejection-free state and which recipients may be candidates for steroid withdrawal. We have identified donor antigen-specific hyporeactivity for 33% (16/48) of lung and 23% (11/47) of heart recipients. For both organ groups, the hyporeactive subgroup experienced a lower incidence of chronic rejection. The probability of donor antigen-specific hyporeactivity predicting a chronic rejection-free state is 100% for lung and 91% for heart recipients. We have identified peripheral blood allogeneic microchimerism for 77% (20/26) of lung and 36% (9/25) of heart recipients tested at 12-18 months posttransplant. Donor antigen-specific hyporeactivity correlates with a critical level of donor cells in lung recipients; the probability of high peripheral blood allogeneic microchimerism levels predicting a chronic rejection-free state in lung recipients is 100%. The results in heart recipients are not as clear with a short-, but not long-term, trend of higher chimerism levels correlating with the development of donor antigen-specific hyporeactivity. These results illustrate the usefulness of immmune parameters to predict long-term graft outcome in an organ-specific manner.
authors.affiliation: Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA. reins001@.mc.duke.edu
authors.forename: N L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Reinsmoen
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hertz
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Savik
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kubo
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ormaza
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McSherry
mesh_terms: D001989:Bronchiolitis Obliterans / Q000276:immunology; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D016040:Lung Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D018183:Transplantation Chimera / Q000276:immunology*; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous / Q000276:immunology