The effect of donor strain blood and ALS therapy on pancreatic islet allograft survival in the rat.

Small amounts of donor strain ACI blood injected in conjunction with minimal ALS therapy prolonged islet allograft survival in Wistar-Lewis, diabetic recipients from a mean of 8 days in nontransfused rats to a mean of more than 100 days. ACI skin grafts transplanted on long-surviving transplant-improved rats were rejected within 8 days, which suggested that "classical" tolerance was probably not the mechanism responsible for the blood-induced suppression of islet allograft rejection.