Heart Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Heart Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

Transforming growth factor beta1-modified donor cell transfusion induced allo-heart tolerance.

Cheng J, Xia SS, Xie S, Tang LG, Shi XF

Institute of Organ Transplantation, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China. chengiun1113@yahoo.com.cn

The therapeutic value of the transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-beta1) in transplantation has been reported; however, cell-mediated gene therapy using TGF-beta1 is not a widespread application in organ transplantation. This study was performed to evaluate whether TGF-beta1-modified donor spleen cell-specific transfusion could induce tolerogenicity and prolong allograft survival in rat heterotopic heart transplantation. Stable TGF-beta1-transduced spleen cells were established. Wistar rat splenic T-cell responses to donor spleen cells that received TGF-beta1-transduced were severely impaired. Survival of Sprague-Dawley cardiac allografts in Wistar rats given TGF-beta1-modified donor spleen cells (5 x 10(6), 7 days before transplantation), was extended modestly but significantly. Liposome transduction of donor spleen cells to overexpress TGF-beta1 is associated with marked impairment of their T-cell allostimulatory activity but only modest prolongation of allo-heart survival.

Published 20 June 2005 in Transplant Proc, 37(5): 2360-4.
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