A comparison of immune response to nerve and skin allografts.

Research in limb reconstruction using peripheral nerve tissue has been hampered by tissue rejection. Not all tissues express major histocompatibility class I and class II antigens to the same extent. Allogenic and isogenic peripheral nerve grafts and split-thickness skin grafts were performed using C57BL/6 and Balb/c mice, which are inbred strains that differ at both major histocompatibility (MHC) class I and class II antigens. The cellular and humoral immune responses of the nerve transplants were compared with studies of skin transplants. Skin allografts represent a "gold standard": they are clearly rejected, with a tissue failure that is easily observed and closely correlated with cellular and humoral projection responses. A significant cellular immune response was noted following both the nerve (p < .04) and skin (p < .03) allografts. The peak response occurred by day 14 following the transplantation. The humoral response with rising antibody titers followed a similar pattern, with peak response at 14 and 21 days post-transplantation. Isogenic transplants did not produce a cellular or humoral immune responses. There was no significant difference between the immune responses produced by the skin transplants, compared to the nerve transplants. Because of the difficulty in producing accurate models of animal function following nerve transplantation, quantitative studies of host immune response to transplantation have not correlated well with the recipient's final functional result. A comparison of the immune responses between clearly rejected skin allografts and nerve allografts suggests that the immune response resulting from nerve allografts could decrease the functional performance of the nerve grafts.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)