HUMORAL rejection is a rare but potentially fatal form of acute allograft rejection. Pathophysiologically, allosensitization against graft determinants occurs either preor posttransplantation. Preformed antibodies lead to the phenomenon of hyperacute rejection. The de novo synthesized antibodies directed against HLA antigens expressed on graft endothelium are clearly associated with humoral rej...

The monitoring of transplanted hearts is currently based on histological evaluation of endomyocardial biopsies, a method that is fairly insensitive and that does not always accurately discriminate between rejection and infection in the heart. Accurate diagnosis of rejection and infection is absolutely crucial, however, as the respective treatments are completely different. Using microarrays, we...

IL-6 mediates numerous immunologic effects relevant to transplant rejection; however, its specific contributions to these processes are not fully understood. To this end, we neutralized IL-6 in settings of acute cardiac allograft rejection associated with either CD8(+) or CD4(+) cell-dominant responses. In a setting of CD8(+) cell-dominant graft rejection, IL-6 neutralization delayed the onset ...

BACKGROUND During acute heart transplant rejection, infiltration of lymphocytes and monocytes is followed by endothelial injury and eventually myocardial fibrosis. To date, no information is available on monocyte-macrophage-related cellular shifts and their polarization status during rejection. Here, we aimed to define and correlate monocyte-macrophage endomyocardial tissue profiles obtained at...

Viral infections are an important complication of solid organ transplantation. Although polyoma is the virus that most commonly infects the renal allograft, adenoviral infections are also reported. We describe the clinical and pathologic findings in a patient with adenoviral infection associated with acute rejection of the renal allograft. The pathologic findings of adenovirus infection usually...

Discovery of non-invasive diagnostic and predictive biomarkers for acute rejection in liver transplant patients would help to ensure the preservation of liver function in the graft, eventually contributing to improved graft and patient survival. We evaluated selected cytokines and chemokines in the sera from liver transplant patients as potential biomarkers for acute rejection, and found that t...