Pathogen‐agnostic immune biomarkers that predict infection after solid organ transplantation

Abstract

Solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) remain at high risk for infection throughout their post‐transplant course. Dosing of immunosuppressive medications, strategies that prevent infection, and choice of empiric antimicrobial treatment could be optimized by a better understanding of an individual patient's risk for infectious complications. Diagnostic tests that qualitatively or quantitatively measure the function of the immune system and/or its response to infection may be useful for individualized management decisions. Numerous studies have identified an association between infectious outcomes after solid organ transplantation (SOT) and the results of a variety of non‐pathogen‐specific or “pathogen‐agnostic” immune monitoring tests. These biomarkers include humoral immune markers, functional or quantitative assessments of cellular immunity, transcriptomic‐based diagnostics, and replication of viruses within the human virome, which have been used to predict or diagnose a variety of different infectious diseases complicating SOT. In this narrative review, we discuss several host‐derived immune biomarkers that show promise for either predicting or diagnosing infection among SOTRs. However, additional studies are needed to determine the optimal use of immune response testing. Whether immune biomarkers contribute added benefits to current standard clinical care has not yet been determined. Testing must be validated across a range of clinical scenarios, including surveillance to predict infection risk and diagnosis of active infection at various time points post transplant.