Allorecognition and Transplantation
In a medical context, allorecognition describes how a transplant recipient’s immune system recognizes the transplanted tissue and subsequently mounts an immune response against it. Left unchecked, this immune response leads to graft rejection. Immunosuppressive drugs are able to prevent graft rejection, but carry with them toxic side effects and increased risks of infection and malignancy. The development of less toxic immunosuppressive therapies is, therefore, a central goal of the field of transplantation.
If invertebrate allorecognition systems are homologous to elements of mammalian immune systems, it could lead to the identification of new or previously unappreciated signaling pathways involved in the graft rejection. Our ongoing work to define the allorecognition signaling pathway in Hydractinia is generating data to address exactly this issue. As members of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at theUniversity of Pittsburgh, we are uniquely positioned to translate findings from Hydractinia into mammalian models to test for medical relevance. It is our hope that this will lead to the discovery of novel immunosuppressive therapies to improve outcomes for transplant patients.
If invertebrate allorecognition systems are homologous to elements of mammalian immune systems, it could lead to the identification of new or previously unappreciated signaling pathways involved in the graft rejection. Our ongoing work to define the allorecognition signaling pathway in Hydractinia is generating data to address exactly this issue. As members of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at theUniversity of Pittsburgh, we are uniquely positioned to translate findings from Hydractinia into mammalian models to test for medical relevance. It is our hope that this will lead to the discovery of novel immunosuppressive therapies to improve outcomes for transplant patients.
