Penetrating keratoplasty (PKP) has emerged as the most common form of solid tissue transplantation over the past 30 years1.This relative success of PKP is attributable to continued advances in surgical techniques, equipment, ocular pharmacology and immunology, corneal storage, and eye banking procedures. For uncomplicated first grafts performed in avascular «low-risk» beds with only local immun...

It is well know that anti-HLA antibodies are an important obstacle in kidney transplantation. Our aim was to study the clinical impact of pretransplant donor specific anti-HLA antibodies (HLA-DSA), in highly sensitized (HS) patients. We analyzed retrospectively the day-of-transplant sera by Luminex Single Antigen Assay (LSA) in HS patients, and the results were correlated with episodes of humor...

Acute rejection (AR) still represents a major clinical problem accounting for most renal graft failures and hinders the success of renal transplantation. There is growing evidence of the genetic association between certain cytokine or its receptor antagonist and AR after renal transplantation. Some studies [1-3] investigated the association of IL1β, IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) or TNF-β ge...

DA rats grafted with major histocompatibility complex-incompatible PVG heart grafts and treated with cyclosporine (CY) for 10 d do not reject their grafts, and develop a state of specific unresponsiveness toward PVG allografts. Cells from these animals tested in an adoptive transfer assay were incapable of restoring PVG graft rejection, and capable of specifically inhibiting the capacity of ado...

Chronic antibody-mediated rejection, a common cause of renal transplant failure, has a variable clinical phenotype. Understanding why some with chronic antibody-mediated rejection progress slowly may help develop more effective therapies. B lymphocytes act as antigen-presenting cells for in vitro indirect antidonor interferon-γ production in chronic antibody-mediated rejection, but many patient...

Clinical observations that kidney transplant recipients receiving belatacept who experienced T cell-mediated acute rejection can be successfully treated and subsequently maintained on belatacept-based immunosuppression suggest that belatacept is able to control memory T cells. We recently reported that treatment with CTLA4-Ig from day 6 posttransplantation successfully rescues allografts from a...

Because ex vivo rapamycin generates murine Th2 cells that prevent Graft-versus-host disease more potently than control Th2 cells, we hypothesized that rapamycin would generate Th2/Tc2 cells (Th2/Tc2.R cells) that abrogate fully MHC-disparate hemopoietic stem cell rejection more effectively than control Th2/Tc2 cells. In a B6-into-BALB/c graft rejection model, donor Th2/Tc2.R cells were indeed e...

Purpose and Methods: Penetrating keratoplasty (PK) in herpes simplex keratitis (HSK) is increasingly performed not only for visual purposes but also to remove viral antigen from the cornea and to reestablish the structural integrity of the eyes. With the improvement of medical management and surgical techniques which lead to a higher survival rate of the graft, PK in HSK still carries a high co...

BACKGROUND HLA Matchmaker is a computer algorithm developed to evaluate donor/receptor compatibility comparing sequences of polymorphic aminoacids (eplets) present in human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules. The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive value of HLA Matchmaker for patient and graft survival, graft survival free of rejection, and the presence of anti HLA antibodies. MET...