Transplant breakthrough could prevent organ rejection
Published: May 18, 2006
Italian scientists have developed a new therapy that could stop transplant patients’ bodies rejecting their new organs .
The innovation developed by researchers at the Mario Negri Institute in Bergamo aims to prevent long-term organ rejection, which doctors call chronic rejection - as opposed to short-term acute rejection .
Chronic rejection is caused by the body’s immune system, which perceives the new organ as a threat and sends T-cell lymphocytes to kill it .
This form of rejection usually takes place a few years after the transplant. It is irreversible and therefore cannot be treated effectively, except with a new transplant .
“We genetically engineer the organ before it is transplanted, using a vector ’shuttle’ virus, whose DNA has been stripped and replaced with that for the production of a protein capable of blocking the T-cell lymphocytes,” Dr. Ariela Benigni, the author of the study, told ANSA .
“The protein is only produced locally, in the new organ, so the rest of the body’s immune system remains unaltered”. This is crucial, because it means the therapy would eliminate the need to give transplant patients immune-suppressant medicines .
As the name suggests, these drugs muzzle the patient’s immune system so the organ can survive .
Transplant patients have to take them for the rest of their lives. As a result, they are more exposed to disease and infections. What’s more, these drugs have many side effects, can cause cancer and do not solve the problem permanently .
“Chronic rejection is still a threat to transplant patients’ long-term survival and there have been no signs of progress in the last 10 years,” explained Benigni, who is the head of Mario Negri Institute’s Molecular Medicine Department .
“The hope is to be able to use immune-suppressants only in the period right after the transplant (to fend off acute rejection)”. Benigni - who produced the protein-shuttle virus with a genetic-engineering group from Trieste led by Mauro Giacca - said she believes the treatment will be ideal for transplants of organs like the liver, heart and kidneys. Initial laboratory tests on mice have been extremely successful. The results are about to be published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN) .
“The next stage is to test the procedure on large non-human primates, which we will do with a team from Padua University,” Benigni continued. She expects tests on human volunteers to start in three to five years’ time .
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