Immune tolerance, the phenomenon by which the allograft is accepted without immunosuppression whilepreserving the recipient's protective immunity, represents a solution to the problems of acute and chronicrejection and the resulting long-term reliance on toxic immunosuppressive therapies. The significant successof transplantation tolerance studies in rodent models has suggested that similar tolerance-inductiontechniques involving bone marrow transplant and hematopoietic chimerism could be achieved in preclinicaland clinical situations, thus revolutionizing solid organ transplantation. Non-human primate models have anumber of important attributes that allow them to serve as critical preclinical models in order to bridge thebasic insights gained in mice and the application of these insights to patient care. Among the mostprominent of the tolerance induction strategies are CD28/CD40 T cell costimulation blockade and mixedchimerism induction. By taking advantage of our ability to induce chimerism using mobilized peripheral bloodstem cells from living Rhesus macaque donors, we propose to perform a systematic analysis of impact of acostimulation blockade and chimerism-based tolerance induction strategy in transplant pairs having varyingdegrees of MHC disparity. These studies also are focused on understanding the immune consequences oftransplant, specifically on evaluating the anti-donor response and the preservation of protective immunity inthe peritransplant period. The unifying purpose of our proposal is to develop clinically applicable protocols forthe induction of tolerance to solid organ allografts while preserving immune competence in the transplantrecipient. Specifically, the aims in this project will address 1) the effectiveness of a CD28/CD40costimulation-blockade-based chimerism/tolerance induction protocol on transplants displaying varyingdegrees of MHC matching between the donor and recipient, 2) the necessary components of theimmunomodulatory strategy for chimerism and tolerance induction, and 3) the efficacy of inhibiting NaturalKiller cell-mediated alloreactivity in order to decrease the need for recipient conditioning and/or donorperipheral blood stem cells to promote tolerance across MHC barriers. We believe the ability to induce stabledonor chimerism and immune tolerance in this transplant setting would have a large impact on the outcomeof transplantation, and holds the promise of relieving many transplant recipients from the requirement forcomplicated life-long immunosuppressive regimens and their attendant toxicities.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Research Program--Cooperative Agreements (U19)
Project #
5U19AI051731-07
Application #
7632233
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZAI1)
Project Start
2008-06-01
Project End
2012-05-31
Budget Start
2008-06-01
Budget End
2009-05-31
Support Year
7
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$744,915
Indirect Cost
Name
Emory University
Department
Type
DUNS #
066469933
City
Atlanta
State
GA
Country
United States
Zip Code
30322
Song, M; Mulvihill, M S; Williams, K D et al. (2018) Fatal SV40-associated pneumonia and nephropathy following renal allotransplantation in rhesus macaque. J Med Primatol 47:81-84
Taraseviciute, Agne; Tkachev, Victor; Ponce, Rafael et al. (2018) Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell-Mediated Neurotoxicity in Nonhuman Primates. Cancer Discov 8:750-763
Ezekian, Brian; Schroder, Paul M; Freischlag, Kyle et al. (2018) Contemporary Strategies and Barriers to Transplantation Tolerance. Transplantation 102:1213-1222
Mathews, David V; Dong, Ying; Higginbotham, Laura B et al. (2018) CD122 signaling in CD8+ memory T cells drives costimulation-independent rejection. J Clin Invest 128:4557-4572
Kean, Leslie S (2018) Defining success with cellular therapeutics: the current landscape for clinical end point and toxicity analysis. Blood 131:2630-2639
Colonna, Lucrezia; Peterson, Christopher W; Schell, John B et al. (2018) Evidence for persistence of the SHIV reservoir early after MHC haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Nat Commun 9:4438
Kean, Leslie S; Turka, Laurence A; Blazar, Bruce R (2017) Advances in targeting co-inhibitory and co-stimulatory pathways in transplantation settings: the Yin to the Yang of cancer immunotherapy. Immunol Rev 276:192-212
Kwun, Jean; Manook, Miriam; Page, Eugenia et al. (2017) Crosstalk Between T and B Cells in the Germinal Center After Transplantation. Transplantation 101:704-712
Mathews, D V; Wakwe, W C; Kim, S C et al. (2017) Belatacept-Resistant Rejection Is Associated With CD28+ Memory CD8 T Cells. Am J Transplant 17:2285-2299
Manook, M; Kwun, J; Burghuber, C et al. (2017) Thrombalexin: Use of a Cytotopic Anticoagulant to Reduce Thrombotic Microangiopathy in a Highly Sensitized Model of Kidney Transplantation. Am J Transplant 17:2055-2064

Showing the most recent 10 out of 73 publications