Characterization of patient antibodies after kidney transplantation.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to characterize patient antibodies before and after cadaver and/or living-donor kidney transplantation and to correlate these data with the clinical course after transplantation.


METHODS
Sera from 69 cadaver, 9 living-related and 2 patients waiting for living-donor kidney transplantation were analyzed by the complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) test, flow cytometry (FCXM) and ELISA.


RESULTS
FCXM revealed that 15.0% of patients before transplantation and 16.7% after transplantation had antibodies to donor cells. 10.3% patients were positive before and after transplantation (+/+), while 6.8% developed antibodies early after transplantation (-/+). Analysis of the specificity of those antibodies by ELISA showed that it was directed to: 1) mismatched donor HLA antigens 2) antigens belonging to the same cross-reacting group (CREG) as the mismatched donor antigens 3) HLA antigens not expressed by donor cells or, probably, to non-HLA antigens.


CONCLUSIONS
Anti-HLA antibodies were detected in patients before and after transplantation and in most cases their anti-HLA specificity could be determined. Fast and precise characterization of antibodies in patients before and after transplantation can be performed by both sensitive methods--FCXM and ELISA--which may help predict the onset of immunological complications and, consequently, improve the prognosis after organ transplantation.
Slavcev
A
A
Department of Clinical Immunology, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic. tosl@medicon.cz
Lácha
J
J
Sajdlová
H
H
Vítko
S
S
Horcicková
M
M
Stríz
I
I
Ivasková
E
E
D000920:Antibody-Dependent Cell Cytotoxicity; D002102:Cadaver; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006680:HLA Antigens / Q000276:immunology*; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D007518:Isoantibodies / Q000032:analysis*; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D019520:Living Donors; D012086:Reoperation; D014019:Tissue Donors
D006680:HLA Antigens; D007518:Isoantibodies