The effect of perioperative portal venous injection of donor spleen cells on renal allograft survival in dogs

: Preoperative portal venous injection of donor lymphocytes has been shown to extend allograft survival in inbred animals. However, the effect of perioperative injection in a large animal model has not been carefully studied. We examined the effect of perioperative (day 0) donor spleen cell administration in a canine kidney transplant model using both a double-donor transplantation and a single-donor survival study. In the double-donor model, two kidneys from two separate donors were transplanted into a single recipient. Spleen cells obtained from only one of the donors were injected through the portal vein immediately after reperfusion of the allografts. Both allografted kidneys were resected 14 days after transplantation and studied. There was only a slight cellular infiltrate in the kidney derived from the donor from whom spleen cells had been obtained, whereas a much more extensive cellular infiltrate as well as edema and hemorrhage were present in the other kidney. In a survival study of single allografts, the injection of 2 x 10(9) spleen cells significantly prolonged the mean survival time (15.0 +/- 3.4 days) compared with untreated recipients (6.6 +/- 2.2 days). Addition of cyclosporine did not significantly prolong survival in the spleen cell inoculated animals. These findings suggest that perioperative protal venous injection of donor cells may be a specific immunosuppressive method useful in clinical organ transplantation.