The cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway delays TLR-induced skin allograft rejection in mice: cholinergic pathway modulates alloreactivity.

Activation of innate immunity through Toll-like receptors (TLR) can abrogate transplantation tolerance by revealing hidden T cell alloreactivity. Separately, the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway has the capacity to dampen macrophage activation and cytokine release during endotoxemia and ischemia reperfusion injury. However, the relevance of the α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR)-dependent anti-inflammatory pathway in the process of allograft rejection or maintenance of tolerance remains unknown.

Ticlopidine and clopidogrel, sometimes combined with aspirin, only minimally increase the surgical risk in renal transplantation: a case-control study.

Background: Patients undergoing kidney transplantation are sometimes being treated with antiplatelet agents such as ticlopidine or clopidogrel. Some teams refuse to wait-list these patients for fear of bleeding during transplant surgery.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 702 adult patients with a kidney transplant alone between 2000 and 2010.

Deficiency of alpha7 cholinergic receptors facilitates bacterial clearance in Escherichia coli peritonitis.

Background: The efferent vagus nerve can inhibit inflammation via interaction between acetylcholine and alpha7 cholinergic receptors.

Methods: To determine the role played by alpha7 receptors in antibacterial defense, peritonitis was induced in alpha7 receptor-deficient (alpha7(-/-)) and wild-type (WT) mice by intraperitoneal injection with Escherichia coli.

Results: At 20 h after infection, virtually all alpha7(-/-) mice had cleared the infection from their peritoneal cavities and had sterile blood cultures, whereas WT mice had high bacterial loads at the primary site of infection and were bacteremic.

Nicotine protects kidney from renal ischemia/reperfusion injury through the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway.

Kidney ischemia/reperfusion injury (I/R) is characterized by renal dysfunction and tubular damages resulting from an early activation of innate immunity. Recently, nicotine administration has been shown to be a powerful inhibitor of a variety of innate immune responses, including LPS-induced toxaemia. This cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway acts via the alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (alpha7nAChR).