Pig to rat cell transplantation: reduced cellular and antibody responses to xenografts overexpressing PD-L1.

Background: Programmed death-1 (PD-1) costimulation acts as a negative regulator of T-cell responses to allografts. However, the role of the PD-1 pathway in xenotransplantation is not well defined yet. We have shown previously that human in vitro T-cell responses to porcine transfectants overexpressing PD-Ligand1 (L23-PD-L1 cells) are remarkably weak.

Exchange of cytosolic content between T cells and tumor cells activates CD4 T cells and impedes cancer growth.

Background: T cells are known to participate in the response to tumor cells and react with cytotoxicity and cytokine release. At the same time tumors established versatile mechanisms for silencing the immune responses. The interplay is far from being completely understood.

Naïve rat NK cells control the onset of T cell response.

NK cell function in the rat is only defined in a rudimentary way due to missing tools for clear NK cell identification. The present study introduces the congenic LEW.BH-NKC rat strain which allows distinct detection of rat NK cells using commercial antibodies.