Intrathymic inoculation of donor liver specific antigen alleviates rejection of liver allotransplantation

摘要

Use and effects of liver specific antigen in orthotopic liver transplantations were researched in this study. Group Ⅰ: syngeneic control (Wistar-to-Wistar); Group Ⅱ: acute rejection (SD-to-Wistar); Group Ⅲ: Thymic inoculation of SD rat LSA day 7 before transplantation. The observation of common situation and survival time, rejection grades, NF-κB activity of splenocytes and IL-2mRNA expression of grafted liver were used to analyze acute rejection severity and immune state of animals in different groups. The common situation of group Ⅰ was very well after transplantation and no signs of rejection were found. Recipients of group Ⅱ lost body weight progressively. All dead within day 9 to day 13 posttransplantation; median survival time was 10.7 +- 0.51 days. It was an optimal acute rejection control. As for group Ⅲ, 5 out of 6 recipients survived for a long time and common situation was remarkably better than that of group Ⅱ. Its rejection grades were significantly lower than that of group Ⅱ( P < 0.05) . NF-κB activity was only detected in group Ⅰ at day 5 and day 7 after transplantation, whereas high activity of NF-κB was detected at all time points in groupⅡ and the low NF-κB activity detected in group Ⅲ was significantly lower than that of group Ⅱ ( P < 0.05) . No IL-2mRNA expression was detected at any time point in group Ⅰ, whereas high level expression was detected at all time points in group Ⅱ and the low level expression only detected at day 3 in group Ⅲ was significantly lower than that of group Ⅱ ( P < 0.05) . Conclusion: LSA is an important transplantation antigen which is involved directly in the immunorejection of liver transplantation. We report here for the first time that intrathymic inoculation of LSA can alleviate the rejection of liver allotransplantation; and that grafts can survive for a long time thereby, thus leading to a novel way to achieve liver transplantation immunotolerance.