Human Leukocyte Antigen G and Renal Allograft Transplant

Objectives: Studying immune tolerance induced by HLA-G in kidney allograft acceptance may help understanding of its mechanisms, hoping in the future to boaster it and decrease the immunosuppressive drugs given that are well known to have serious adverse effects. Materials and Methods: The current study sought to evaluate soluble HLA-G in 3 groups: kidney transplanted patients with no rejection episodes, transplanted patients with biopsy-proven renal rejection, and healthy age-matched nontransplanted individuals. Three groups were studied: kidney transplanted patients with no rejection episodes (n = 43); transplanted patients with biopsy-proven renal rejection (n = 27); healthy, age-matched, nontransplanted individuals as controls (n = 42). Soluble HLA-G level was measured in the serum by a quantitative sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Results: sHLAG level was significantly higher in the transplanted patients compared with the control. Prograf and not cyclosporine or Rapamune had positive effects on sHLAG levels. Patients with chronic rejection had a significant lower level of sHLAG compared with a graft stable group. No effect of donor type, infection or duration posttransplant, on sHLAG levels was found. Conclusions: The results of the current study are consistent with previous studies addressing the role of sHLAG in inducing immunotolerance postkidney transplant. The findings from the current study on the chronic rejection group, supports the on-going research of having a treatment with HLA-G/or derivate, which may constitute in the future a novel efficient anti-graft rejection therapy.