Enhancement of cardiac allografts in rats at the major AbG locus. I. Synergistic effect of specific and non-specific immunosuppression.

Investigations of the specific and nonspecific immunosupression of heart transplants in rats are presented. Pretreatment of the Wistar recipient of the August heart with donor strain cellular antigen and anti-donor hyperimmune serum 11 and 10 days before transplantation caused enhancement of the heart graft in this strain combination differing in the major AgB histocompatibility locus. Combination of that protocol with non-specific immunosuppression, i.e. ATS treatment caused synergistic effect. Heart grafts in animal treated with that full protocol of biological immunosuppression survived for 50.8 days.