Transplantation tolerance in primates following total lymphoid irradiation and allogeneic bone marrow injection. II. Renal allografts.

A modified regimen of fractionated total lymphoid irradiation and allogeneic bone marrow (BM) injection in chacma baboons produced transplantation tolerance for allografted kidneys from the BM donors, and substantial chimerism without evidence of graft-versus-host disease. Increasing the dose of nucleated BM cells injected 4-fold over that used in liver transplantation resulted consistently in normal graft function in the early weeks after transplantation. Bone marrow injection and challenge with renal allografts could be delayed for at least 3 weeks after completion of irradiation. If it can be shown that this period can be extended even further, the protocols will be relevant to the circumstances of clinical cadaveric renal transplantation.