title: Both rejection and tolerance of allografts can occur in the absence of secondary lymphoid tissues.
abstract: In this study, we showed that aly/aly mice, which are devoid of lymph nodes and Peyer's patches, acutely rejected fully allogeneic skin and heart grafts. They mounted potent inflammatory direct alloresponses but failed to develop indirect alloreactivity after transplantation. Remarkably, skin allografts also were rejected acutely by splenectomized aly/aly (aly/aly-spl(-)) mice devoid of all secondary lymphoid organs. In these recipients, the rejection was mediated by alloreactive CD8(+) T cells presumably primed in the bone marrow. In contrast, cardiac transplants were not rejected by aly/aly-spl(-) mice. Actually, aly/aly-spl(-) mice that spontaneously accepted a heart allotransplant and displayed donor-specific tolerance also accepted skin grafts from the same, but not a third-party, donor via a mechanism involving CD4(+) regulatory T cells producing IL-10 cytokine. Therefore, direct priming of alloreactive T cells, as well as rejection and regulatory tolerance of allogeneic transplants, can occur in recipient mice lacking secondary lymphoid organs.
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Cavit D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Kant
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Yoshinobu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Akiyama
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Katsunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shea
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Yohei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Connolly
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Jose
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Marino
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tocco
authors.affiliation: Transplantation Research Center, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114 gbenichou@partners.org.
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Benichou
mesh_terms: D064591:Allografts / Q000276:immunology*; D000818:Animals; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000276:immunology* / Q000401:mortality; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D007108:Immune Tolerance; D007156:Immunologic Memory; D008221:Lymphoid Tissue / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D016038:Skin Transplantation; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism