Bone Grafts Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Bone Grafts, including details on spine fusion, surgery, procedure, risks.

Simultaneous bone marrow and intestine transplantation promotes marrow-derived hematopoietic stem cell engraftment and chimerism.

Nakao A, Toyokawa H, Kimizuka K, Nalesnik MA, Nozaki I, Bailey RJ, Demetris AJ, Starzl TE, Murase N

Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, Department of Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.

Organ allografts have been shown to provide a syngeneic microenvironment for organ-based donor hematopoietic stem cells to maintain long-lasting chimerism after transplantation. We hypothesized that organ allografts would also support engraftment and hematopoiesis of adjunctively infused donor marrow stem cells, syngeneic to organ grafts, in nonmyeloablated recipients. In BN-to-LEW and GFP-to-ACI rat combinations, donor bone marrow (BM) infusion together with small intestine transplantation (SITx) under short-course tacrolimus immunosuppression resulted in persistent macrochimerism (more than 5%) for 150 days. In contrast, after BM infusion or SITx alone, chimerism was temporary and disappeared by day 100. Y-chromosome polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in sex-mismatched male BM plus female intestine or female BM plus male intestine transplantation into female recipients suggested that persistent macrochimerism was derived from infused BM. BM infusion together with lymphoid-depleted intestine grafts also supported macrochimerism development; however, third-party intestine grafts did not. After GFP-positive BM plus wild-type (WT) SITx into ACI, large numbers of GFP-positive leukocytes were found in WT intestine grafts. Isolated cells from WT intestine grafts developed GFP-positive CFU-Cs and propagated multilineage GFP-positive leukocytes when adoptively transferred into lethally irradiated WT recipients. These findings suggest that intestine allograft supports simultaneously infused donor (syngeneic to organ grafts) marrow stem cell engraftment, differentiation, and persistence of chimerism.

Published 7 August 2006 in Blood, 108(4): 1413-20.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Bone Grafts Research Today. All Rights Reserved.