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Xenotransplantation

An approach to solving the organ shortage through Xenotransplantation being developed at the TBRC:

It is likely that the combination of bone marrow and organ transplantation will eventually become a mainstream procedure to achieve tolerance to organ and pancreatic islet transplants. However, there will still never be enough organ and tissue donors for all of the patients whose lives could be saved by transplantation. Because of the organ shortage, many people die every year while waiting for a heart, liver or kidney transplant. Xenotransplantation, the transplantation of organs and tissues from other species, offers a potential solution to this problem. Because of its similar physiology, the pig is widely considered to be the best choice of animal species for transplantation to humans. Miniature swine, which have been developed by investigators at the TBRC for this long-term goal, are the same size as humans. However, the immune barriers to pig antigens are even stronger than those to the alloantigens on grafts from other humans, and data suggest that tolerance will be necessary in order to make Xenotransplantation successful. Investigators in the TBRC have developed several novel strategies for tolerance induction to xenogeneic species, and these have been applied, first in small animal models and most recently in a pig to non-human primate transplantation model. Moreover, special miniature swine have been genetically engineered so that they lack the major target of antibody-mediated rejection, which has previously been the major barrier to success of pig-to-primate transplantation. The latest results using these genetically engineered “knock-out” pigs in combination with tolerance-inducing strategies have been very encouraging, and promise to bring the goal of clinical Xenotransplantation to fruition in the near future.