Feasibility of diagnosing renal allograft dysfunction by oligonucleotide array: Gene expression profile correlates with histopathology.

Background: Effective non-invasive monitoring method to tell histopathology is a big challenge in renal transplantation.

Methods: We used 70-mer long oligonucleotide array with 449 immune related genes to determine gene expression profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) under different immune status including stable renal function (TX), acute tubular necrosis (ATN), biopsy conformed acute rejection (AR), clinical rejection with pathology of borderline changes (BL), clinical rejection without biopsy proven/presumed rejection (PR) and renal dysfunction without rejection (NR).

Results: Distinct molecular expression signatures in each group were found to correlate with histopathology. And we concluded that B cell chemokine CXCL13 and mast cell may play a role in renal allograft rejection through significant difference analysis and functional pathway analysis.

Conclusions: It provides a potential non-invasive method for monitoring renal allograft function and immune status of renal transplant recipients.