title: Intrathymic inoculation of liver specific antigen alleviates liver transplant rejection.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study the effects of liver specific antigen (LSA) on liver allotransplantation rejection.
  
  
  METHODS
  Orthotopic liver transplantation was performed in this study. Group I: syngeneic control (Wistar-to-Wistar); Group II: acute rejection (SD-to-Wistar). Group III: thymic inoculation of SD rat LSA day 7 before transplantation. The observation of general condition and survival time, rejection grades and the NF-kappaB activity of splenocytes were used to analyze severity of acute rejection and immune state of animals in different groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The general condition of group I was fair post transplantation with no sign of rejection. All recipients of group II died within days 9 to 13 post transplantation with median survival time of 10.7 +/- 1.37 days. As for group III, 5 out of 6 recipients survived for a long period with remarkably better general condition than that of group II. Its rejection grades were significantly lower than group II (P<0.05). NF-kappaB activity was only detected in group I between days 5 and 7 after transplantation, whereas high activity of NF-kappaB was detected at all points in group II and low NF-kappaB activity was detected in group III which was significantly lower than that of group II (P<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  LSA is an important transplantation antigen directly involved in the immunorejection of liver transplantation. Intrathymic inoculation of LSA can alleviate the rejection of liver allotransplantation, grafts survive for a period of time thereby, allowing a novel way to liver transplantation immunotolerance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Pancreatic Surgery, Key Lab of Combined Multi-organ Transplantation, Ministry of Public Health, First Affiliated Hospital of College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310003. jiachk@sohu.com
authors.forename: Changku
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Shusen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Youfa
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002469:Cell Separation; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D007519:Isoantigens / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D008297:Male; D016328:NF-kappa B / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013154:Spleen / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D013950:Thymus Gland / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D007519:Isoantigens; D016328:NF-kappa B; C030497:liver specific F antigen