Microchimerism and Renal Transplantation: Doubt Still Persists

Recipient-matching of Passenger Leukocytes Prolongs Survival of Donor Lung Allografts in Miniature Swine

“…In a study of 11 patients, stable microchimerism was detected among B cells, T cells, monocytes, and NK cells, but not among dendritic cells during the first year after lung transplantation (25,26). The clinical significance of microchimerism is still debatable, as some studies show that microchimerism can be either correlated with allograft dysfunction (27,28), associated with donor-specific hyporesponsiveness (29), or unrelated to graft rejection (30). …”

Human leucocyte antigen-defined microchimerism early post-transplant does not predict for stable lung allograft function

“…Stable pulmonary function, as measured by percentage of personal best, was observed in the majority of patients both in the presence [82%; (nine of 11,Tx 4,5,7,8,11,12,13,14 and 18)] or absence [86%; (six of seven, Tx 9,15,16,17,19 and 20)] of HLA-B44 microchimerism (Fig. 3b).…”

A modern Cosmas and Damian: Sir Roy Calne and Thomas Starzl receive the 2012 Lasker~Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award

“…The organ engraftment in the patients that stopped taking their immunosuppressive drugs and in Calne's porcine liver transplants appeared to be caused by donor leukocyte chimerism (72)(73)(74). The role of microchimerism in graft acceptance is still highly controversial, as it is not perfectly correlated with graft acceptance, and the effect of microchimerism appears to be organ dependent (75)(76)(77). "There's still room for improvement in immunosuppression," said Starzl, "particularly in developing better strategies for using good drugs that are already there.…”