title: Pre-transplant donor-specific Interferon-gamma-producing cells and acute rejection of the kidney allograft.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Our retrospective study included a cohort of 47 patients who underwent living donor kidney transplantation.The pre-transplant frequencies of donor-specific Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) producing cells were define dusing enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (ELISpot) assay and correlated with incidence of acute cellular(ACR), antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) and kidney graft survival up to one year after transplantation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found a statistically significant correlation between the frequencies of IFN-γ-producing cells and the number of mismatches in HLA antigens between patients and their respective donors – for Class I – A and B (r = 0.399, p b 0.01) and for Class I and Class II antigens – A, B and DR (r = 0.409, p b 0.01). No significant relationship was observed between the numbers of IFN-γ-secreting cells and incidence of acute rejection (neither ACR, nor AMR). However, there was a trend of elevated frequencies of IFN-γ-producing cells in patients who developed ACR or AMR in comparison with kidney recipients free of rejection (91 ± 82 and 114 ± 75 vs. 72 ± 70/5 × 10(4) peripheral blood mononuclear cells respectively). Patients with concurrent acute cellular and antibody-mediated rejection had also higher numbers of IFN-γ-producing memory/effector cells compared to patients with cellular rejection only.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pre-transplant determination of the numbers of IFN-γ-producing donor-specific memory cells using the ELISpot technique may provide clinically relevant results when evaluating the risk of development of acute cellular and antibody-mediated rejection. These frequencies are influenced by the degree of HLA mismatching between patients and their respective kidney donors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunogenetics, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic. Electronic address: antonij.slavcev@ikem.cz.
authors.forename: Antonij
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Slavcev
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunogenetics, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Katerina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rybakova
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunogenetics, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Svobodova
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Janka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Slatinska
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical & Transplantation Pathology, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Honsova
authors.affiliation: Unit of Medical Statistics, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jelena
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Skibova
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Ondrej
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Viklicky
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical & Transplantation Immunology, IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Ilja
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Striz
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000920:Antibody-Dependent Cell Cytotoxicity; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D015331:Cohort Studies; D058501:Enzyme-Linked Immunospot Assay; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000276:immunology*; D006085:Graft Survival; D006680:HLA Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000378:metabolism*; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006680:HLA Antigens; D007371:Interferon-gamma
keywords: Acute rejection; ELISpot; HLA antigens; Interferon-gamma; Kidney transplantation