Peritransplant streptavidin recipient treatment prolongs rat cardiac allograft survival.
BACKGROUND
Because streptavidin shows high localization in inflamed tissues, it might also interfere with the proliferation of cells involved in allograft rejection.


RESULTS
Treatment of naïve ACI recipients with 20 mg/kg streptavidin i.p. alone significantly prolonged Lewis cardiac allografts from a mean survival time of 9.8+/-0.7 days in controls to 19.8+/-6.5 days, with one recipient accepting the graft permanently (>250 days). Peritransplant streptavidin treatment combined with 0.5 ml of antilymphocyte serum (ALS) transient immunosuppression led to permanent graft survival (>250 days) in 6 of 10 recipients. Second-set skin grafts performed 60 days after the primary cardiac allograft were prolonged to 45 days, whereas the third party Wistar-Furth (WF) skin grafts were rejected in 15 days without the rejection of the primary Lewis cardiac allografts. Pathology of transplanted cardiac allografts at 100 days showed no mononuclear cell infiltration or chronic allograft vasculopathy. Streptavidin given for 5 days at 20 mg/kg caused a moderate initial weight loss but had no effect on hematologic, biochemical, and histologic parameters in the treated recipients.


CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates that peritransplant recipient treatment with streptavidin combined with peritransplant ALS induces prolonged cardiac and second-set skin allograft survival. We conclude that recipient peritransplant streptavidin treatment may provide a new strategy for the induction of transplant tolerance.
Department of Radiology, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, New York, New York 10032. USA.rf5@columbia.edu
Rashid A
RA
Fawwaz
Olakunle O
OO
Oluwole
Hector A
HA
DePaz
Ming-Xing
MX
Jin
Theodore S T
TS
Wang
Mark A
MA
Hardy
Soji F
SF
Oluwole
D000818:Animals; D006085:Graft Survival / Q000187:drug effects*; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D051381:Rats; D011912:Rats, Inbred ACI; D011917:Rats, Inbred Lew; D011920:Rats, Inbred WF; D019809:Streptavidin / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D015431:Weight Loss
D019809:Streptavidin