title: Prolonged survival of xenografts after organ culture.
abstract: Recent reports demonstrate that culture of thyroid allografts before transplantation results in prolonged and sometimes indefinite survival. The loss of passenger leukocytes during organ culture was discussed as a possible reason for these findings. Recent data from a genetically defined system in the mouse demonstrated that passenger leukocytes play an important role in providing a helper stimulus which potentiates the generation of cytotoxic T cells to serologically defined determinants. To ascertain whether this mechanism also is involved in a xenogeneic system, cultured Wistar thyroids were transplanted to DBA/2 mice. The experimental system used was described first by Lafferty and co-workers. Thyroid function was determined by 125-iodine uptake of the graft and by histology. Fresh Wistar thyroids were rejected after a short period of good function on the sixth day after transplantation. Culturing for 10 days resulted in a prolonged graft function up to the fifteenth day. However, if the thyroids were kept in culture for 27 days, no functional signs of rejection could be detected on the twenty-fifth day after transplantation by iodine uptake. The iodine uptake ratio was 47.1 (control group on day 6 was 2.4). Injection of 10(5) fresh donor cells at the time of transplantation reversed the effect of long-term organ culture.
authors.affiliation: Immunobiology Research Center and the Departments of Medical Genetics and Surgery, The University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis 53706, USA.
authors.forename: H W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Sollinger
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Burkholder
authors.forename: W R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Rasmus
authors.forename: F H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Bach
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006085:Graft Survival; D051379:Mice; D008811:Mice, Inbred DBA; D009924:Organ Culture Techniques; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013961:Thyroid Gland / Q000637:transplantation*; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous