Adjuvant conditioning induces an immunosuppressive milieu that delays alloislet rejection through the expansion of myeloid-derived suppressor cells.

Advances in immunosuppression have been relatively stagnant over the past 2 decades, and transplant recipients continue to experience long-term morbidity associated with immunosuppression regimens. Strategies to reduce or eliminate the dosage of immunosuppression medications are needed. We discovered a novel administration strategy using the classic adjuvant alum to condition murine islet transplant recipients, known as adjuvant conditioning (AC), to expand both polymorphonuclear and monocytic myeloid-derived suppressive cells (MDSCs) in vivo.

Interleukin-27 in liver xenotransplantation: A rational target to mitigate ischemia reperfusion injury and increase xenograft survival.

Transplantation of xenogeneic organs is an attractive solution to the existing organ shortage dilemma, thus, securing a clinically acceptable prolongation of xenograft survival is an important goal. In preclinical transplantation models, recipients of liver, kidney, heart, or lung xenotransplants demonstrate significant graft damages through the release of pro-inflammatory molecules, including the C-reactive protein, cytokines, and histone-DNA complexes that all foster graft rejection. Recent studies have demonstrated that mitigation of ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI) greatly improves xenograft survival.

Properties of regulatory B cells regulating B cell targets.

Regulatory B cells (Bregs) have shown promise as anti-rejection therapy applied to organ transplantation. However, less is known about their effect on other B cell populations that are involved in chronic graft rejection. We recently uncovered that naïve B cells, stimulated by TLR ligand agonists, converted into B cells with regulatory properties (Bregs-TLR) that prevented allograft rejection.

Detection of alloreactive T cells from cryopreserved human peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Precise analyses of alloreactive T cell phenotype and function can inform both the nature and intensity of adaptive responses to transplant antigens. However, alloreactive T cells are sparse and difficult to detect, particularly in cryopreserved peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and from hypo-responsive individuals. An assay to identify and phenotype alloreactive cells would be particularly valuable, especially for multi-center clinical trials that often store frozen samples for batch analysis.

Rap GTPase Interactor: A Potential Marker for Cancer Prognosis Following Kidney Transplantation.

Post-transplant (post-Tx) kidney cancer has become the second-highest cause of death in kidney recipients. Late diagnosis and treatment are the main reasons for high mortality. Further research into early diagnosis and potential treatment is therefore required.