Biomarkers and Surrogates of Acute Rejection in Vascularized Composite Allograft Transplantation

This chapter summarizes current progress in the development of non-invasive skin and serum biomarkers and surrogates for the recognition or prediction of acute rejection (AR) in the field of vascularized composite allograft (VCA) transplantation. In particular, the chapter highlights key developments in the following pre-clinical and clinical areas of VCA biomarker and surrogate research: cell phenotypes within peripheral blood and tissue, gene expression profiling, donor-derived cell-free DNA, microRNA profiling, proteomics, imaging, sentinel skin flaps, microbiome, and future immune phenotyping techniques.