Astrid Dinkel

The functional relevance of passenger leukocytes and microchimerism for heart allograft acceptance in the rat.

With an organ transplant, hematopoietic donor cells are transferred to the recipient. To study the relevance of the resulting microchimerism for allograft acceptance, we analyzed a rat model of cyclosporine-induced tolerance for strongly incompatible heart allografts. Using a monoclonal antibody that detects a donor-specific CD45 allotype (RT7a), we selectively depleted donor leukocytes at different times after transplantation (days 0 or 18). Depletion was similarly effective at both times. However, only depletion on day 0 prevented tolerance induction and was associated with severe acute or chronic graft rejection. This indicates that passenger leukocytes have an essential immunomodulatory effect on the induction phase of allograft acceptance.

Long-term allograft acceptance induced by single dose anti-leukocyte common antigen (RT7) antibody in the rat.

Background. In clinical organ transplantation monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to different surface molecules of immunocompetent cells become integral parts of the immunosuppressive therapy. In this study, a mAb against the rat leukocyte common antigen CD45 (RT7) was tested for its immunosuppressive potency after a single perioperative injection. Methods. Binding and depleting properties of the anti-RT7 mAb were investigated by flow cytometry. In the fully major histocompatibility complex–disparate heart and skin transplantation models (LEW [RT1l] → LEW.1W [RT1u]), a single dose of anti-RT7 mAb (10 mg/kg) was administered intravenously (day −1). To characterize the long-term acceptance of heart allografts second set skin transplantation (day 100), mixed lymphocyte reaction studies (day 100) and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis for intragraft cytokine expression (day 200) were performed. Results. The anti-RT7 mAb bound to nearly all hematopoietic lineage cells, but particularly T and NK cells, and profoundly depleted these cells in circulation and lymphoid tissues. Anti-RT7 mAb-treated rats showed long-term acceptance of heart allografts (>200 days; n=12), whereas untreated recipients rejected allografts by day 8 (n=6). In contrast to hearts, primary skin allograft survival was only moderately prolonged. Animals with stable heart allograft acceptance showed normal in vitro lymphocyte proliferation responses to donor and third party antigen. These recipients also acutely rejected second set donor-strain skin grafts without inducing rejection of persisting heart allografts. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis of intragraft cytokines showed up-regulation of Fas-ligand and IL-4 mRNA in long-surviving heart allografts. Conclusions. The findings demonstrate that a single injection of an anti-RT7 mAb in the rat can induce stable long-term acceptance of heart allografts by transient but profound T-cell depletion. Local immunoregulatory mechanisms seem to play a role for maintenance of long-term graft acceptance.

Bone marrow aplasia induced by passenger leukocytes from heart allografts

OBJECTIVE Organ allografts contain passenger leukocytes that are transferred to the recipient with the transplantation, but their functional relevance to the recipients immune system is still controversial. MATERIALS AND METHODS To clarify the functional capacity of passenger leukocytes, we attempted to enhance their effect in rat heart allograft recipients by selective depletion of recipient leukocytes using a monoclonal antibody (mAb) against a recipient-specific allotype of CD45 (RT7(a)). RESULTS Although antibody treatment of the recipient alone led to profound lymphopenia and reversible myelosuppression, additional transplantation of an major histocompatibility complex-incompatible heart graft from an RT7(b) donor led to lethal aplastic anemia in the recipients. This lethal effect was completely abrogated by postoperative anti-CD3 treatment of the recipient and was partially abrogated or delayed by depletion of passenger leukocytes through additional anti-RT7(b) antibody treatment of the recipient or gamma-irradiation of the graft. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest a role for both donor and recipient-type T cells for the induction of aplastic anemia in this model. The study shows that, under defined conditions, allogeneic passenger leukocytes in a heart graft can have a profound effect on the recipients immune system and bone marrow.

Expression of The Ectoenzyme RT6 is Not Restricted to Resting Peripheral T Cells and is Differently Regulated in Normal Peripheral T Cells, Intestinal IEL, and NK Cells

The RT6 alloantigenic system of the rat has originally been defined on T lymphocytes of the peripheral lymphatic organs and has been considered to be selectively expressed on mature peripheral T cells. Studying NK cells and intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL), we have now found that both cell types also express RT6 and that the expression patterns found for IEL and NK cells were markedly different from each other and also from the expression pattern previously described for T cells of the peripheral lymphatic organs. In lymph nodes, spleen, and blood both RT6- and RT6+ T cells have been found and the density of RT6 expression on the positive cells has been shown to vary over a broad range. In contrast more than 98% of intestinal IEL stained for RT6 and the RT6 density was about tenfold higher than on strongly positive T cells of the peripheral lymphatic organs. Furthermore, the same high RT6 density was also found on IEL of athymic nude rats althogh these cells, to a large extent, lacked other T cell markers. This probably indicates that RT6 expression is an early event in the maturation of intestinal IEL which can occur already before the expression of T cell-specific membrane molecules. The conclusion that the expression of RT6 may be differently regulated in IEL and other T cell populations was further substantiated by the observation that RT6 was also present on IEL of diabetes-prone BB rats which are known to lack RT6 positive T cells in peripheral lymphatic organs. For NK cells still another pattern of RT6 expression was found. Unlike peripheral T cells and IEL, only a small subset of NK cells in blood and spleen expressed RT6. The percentage of RT6 positive cells was increased by in vitro stimulation of isolated NK cells with high concentrations of recombinant rat IL-2 indicating that RT6 expression may be associated with an activated state in NK cells. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the expression of RT6 is not restricted to T cells and is differently regulated in normal peripheral T cells, intestinal IEL, and NK cells. Since it has recently been demonstrated that the RT6 gene contains two functional promoter regions with major structural disparity it is very likely that the distinct patterns of RT6 expression in different cell types reflect the differential use of the two promoters. The development of this complex control of RT6 expression in evolution may have been driven by a beneficial effect resulting from the use of the RT6 molecular function by several different lymphocyte populations.