Absence of a Relationship between the Increased Survival of Skin Grafts Provoked by Additional Spleen Transplantation and the Detection of Donor Chimeric Cells in Rats

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between the effects of spleen transplantation on the acceptance of a skin allograft from the same donor and the detection of donor chimerism in recipient tissues. Male Sprague-Dawley rats and female Wistar rats were used as donors and recipients, respectively. Four experimental groups were established: group C: only skin grafting was performed; group S: recipients were splenectomized before skin grafting; group 1: skin grafts were performed immediately after splenectomy of recipients and spleen transplantation, and group 2: splenectomy of the recipients and spleen grafting were performed 48 h before skin grafting. All animals were sacrificed 14 weeks after surgery. The rate of acceptance of skin grafts was significantly higher in animals that received both skin and spleen transplantations than in group C (p = 0.03) or in group S (p = 0.04). Detection of donor chimeric cells was significantly more frequent in rats after spleen transplantation than in group C (p = 0.03). However, the detection of chimeric cells was not related to the acceptance of skin grafts. To conclude, the beneficial effect of spleen auxiliary transplantation on allograft survival was not related to the detection of long-term chimerism in the recipient’s tissues.