The Effect of Donor Antigen-pulsed Dendritic Cells on Survival of Skin Allograft in a Rat Model

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Prevention of acute rejection in skin allografts without continuous immunosuppression lacks reports in worldwide literature. Needs for chronic immunosuppression preclude the use of tissue allograft as a routine surgical reconstructive option. Recently dendritic cells(DC) gained considerable attention as antigen presenting cells that are also capable of immunologic tolerance induction. This study assesses the effects of alloantigen-pulsed dendritic cells in induction of survival increase in a rat skin allograft model. METHODS: Recipient-derived dendritic cells were harvested from rat whole blood and cultured with GM- CSF(200ng/mL) and IL-4(8ng/mL) for 2 weeks. Then donor-specific alloantigen pulsed dendritic cells were reinjected into tail vein before skin graft. The rat dorsal skin allografts were transplanted in 5 subgroups. Groups I) untreated, II) anti-lymphocyte serum(ALS, 0.5 mL), III) FK-506(2mg/kg), IV) DCp, VI) DCp and FK- 506. Graft appearance challenges were assessed postoperatively. RESULTS: The group V(DC and FK-506 treated) showed longest graft survival rate(23.5 days) than other groups; untreated(5.8 days), ALS(7.2 days), FK-506 (17.5 days), DCp(12.2 days). CONCLUSION: Donor antigen pulsed host dendritic cell combined with short-term immunosuppression prolong skin allograft survival and has potential therapeutic application for induction of donor antigen specific tolerance.