Authors:
Shusen Wang, James Tasch, Taba Kheradmand, Jodie Ulaszek, Sora Ely, Xiaomin Zhang, Bernhard J. Hering, Stephen D. Miller, and Xunrong Luo
Summary:
Peritransplant infusion of apoptotic donor splenocytes cross-linked with ethylene carbodiimide (ECDI-SPs) has been demonstrated to effectively induce allogeneic donor-specific tolerance. The objective of the current study is to determine the effectiveness and additional requirements for tolerance induction for xenogeneic islet transplantation using donor ECDI-SPs. In a rat-to-mouse xenogeneic islet transplant model, we show that rat ECDI-SPs alone significantly prolonged islet xenograft survival, but failed to induce tolerance. In contrast to allogeneic donor ECDI-SPs, xenogeneic donor ECDI-SPs induced production of xenodonor-specific antibodies partially responsible for the eventual islet xenograft rejection. Consequently, depletion of B cells prior to infusions of rat ECDI-SPs effectively prevented such antibody production and led to the indefinite survival of rat islet xenografts. In addition to controlling antibody responses, transient B cell depletion combined with ECDI-SPs synergistically suppressed xenodonor-specific T cell priming as well as memory T cell generation. Reciprocally, after initial depletion, the recovered B cells in long-term tolerized mice exhibited xenodonor-specific hypo-responsiveness. We conclude that transient B cell depletion combined with donor ECDI-SPs is a robust strategy for induction of xenodonor-specific T and B cell tolerance. This combinatorial therapy may be a promising strategy for tolerance induction for clinical xenogeneic islet transplantation.
Source:
Diabetes; (07/12/13)