The meaning of early intragraft cytokine expression in rat reanl allografts with Rapamycin and Cyclosporine immunosuppression

Abstract

It has been suggested that immune deviation towards a Th-2 response may be involved in allograft acceptance as Th-2 cells have been found to be present in recipients with long-term surviving allografts. Our data up to 30days illustrates simultaneous presence of Th-1 and Th-2 cells in the allograft, so that in this model Th-1/Th-2 shift occurs later than we expected. Further prospective experiment at 60 to 120 days are oin progress to define the kinetics of this T cell population shift to allow future study of how manipulating the timing may affect the biology leading to chronic rejection.