Kidney graft survival in rats without immunosuppressants after intrathymic glomerular transplantation.

Isolated glomeruli from Brown-Norway (RT1n) rat kidney were inoculated into the thymus of 6 incompatible Lewis (RT1(1] rats pretreated for 2 days with 40 mg/kg oral cyclosporin daily and given 2.5 mg/kg subcutaneous dexamethasone at inoculation. 10 days later the left kidney from the Brown-Norway donor used to prepare glomeruli was transplanted orthotopically to the Lewis (RT1(1] rat that had received intrathymic glomeruli. Donor-specific unresponsiveness allowed the renal allograft to survive indefinitely without further immunosuppression. 6 control Lewis rats treated as above except that medium alone was injected intrathymically rejected a renal allograft within 7-9 days.