title: Secondary lymphoid organs are important but not absolutely required for allograft responses.
abstract: The role of secondary lymphoid organs in adaptive immune responses following transplantation is controversial. To examine the requirement for peripheral lymphoid organs in mounting immune responses to transplantation antigens, lymphotoxin alpha-deficient (LTalpha-/-) and LTbeta-receptor-deficient (LTbetaR-/-) mice that lack lymph nodes and Peyer's patches were used as recipients of fully allogeneic heart and skin grafts. Splenectomized LTalpha-/- and LTbetaR-/- mice effectively rejected skin and cardiac allografts, although with delayed kinetics when compared with wild-type controls. In addition, initial skin allograft challenge in splenectomized LTbetaR-/- mice resulted in accelerated rejection of subsequent donor cardiac allografts when compared with heart rejection in nonsensitized controls. Thus, although peripheral lymphoid organs play an important role in allowing allograft responses to occur, they do not appear to be absolutely required for either acute allograft rejection, or T-cell priming. These results suggest that immunologic events capable of leading to allograft rejection can successfully occur at sites other than classical secondary lymphoid organs.
authors.affiliation: Section of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Kwang Woo
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Palucki
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Kenneth A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Newell
authors.forename: Yang-Xin
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Maria-Luisa
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Alegre
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015496:CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D007700:Kinetics; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000378:metabolism; D008208:Lymphatic System / Q000276:immunology; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008809:Mice, Inbred C3H; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D016038:Skin Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D013997:Time Factors; D014181:Transplantation Immunology