Tacrolimus-based partial conditioning produces stable mixed lymphohematopoietic chimerism and tolerance for cardiac allografts.

BACKGROUND

Thoracic organ transplantation remains limited by the reciprocal problems of rejection and the toxicities of nonspecific immunosuppression. Mixed bone marrow chimerism reliably produces donor-specific transplantation tolerance without immunosuppressive drugs. We have previously described a nonmyeloablative conditioning regimen based on recipient treatment with antilymphocyte serum, tacrolimus, and low-dose total-body irradiation that yields long-term multilineage allogeneic bone marrow chimerism in the rat. We have now investigated whether mixed bone marrow chimerism that arises from this partial conditioning strategy produces permanent acceptance of donor-specific cardiac allografts.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Mixed allogeneic chimeras (ACI-->WF) were prepared by treating Wistar Furth recipients with a single dose of antilymphocyte serum 5 days before bone marrow transplantation and tacrolimus 1 mg/kg/d from days -1 to 10. Five hundred cGy total-body irradiation was administered immediately before infusion of 1 x 10(8) donor (ACI) T-cell depleted marrow cells. All recipients were chimeric, with a mean level of donor chimerism = 26.3 +/- 3.5%. Chimeras underwent heterotopic cardiac transplantation 4 weeks after bone marrow transplantation. All donor-specific (ACI) grafts were permanently accepted (follow-up, 230 to 360 days). Third-party grafts were rapidly rejected. Histology of long-surviving donor-specific grafts was without evidence of acute or chronic rejection. Second-set donor-specific skin grafts transplanted to chimeras 135 days after heart transplantation showed long-term survival (> 130 days), whereas third-party skin grafts were rapidly rejected. Mixed lymphocyte reaction demonstrated in vitro donor-specific hyporeactivity.

CONCLUSIONS

A tacrolimus-based nonmyeloablative recipient conditioning regimen produces mixed bone marrow chimerism and donor-specific tolerance to cardiac allografts in the rat.