New avenues in the use of cyclosporine for transplantation. Graft and donor pretreatment

Ex vivo perfusion with mitomycin C containing solution prolongs heart graft survival in rats

Mitomycin C (MMC) is an alkylating agent which suppresses allogeneic T-cell responses. We analyzed the effect of graft perfusion with MMC on transplant survival. Hearts from Brown-Norway (BN) rats were perfused ex vivo with MMC-containing solution, stored and implanted into Lewis (LEW) rats. In order to analyze the in vivo effect of MMC, recipients received MMC posttransplantation or were pretreated with MMC-incubated donor-derived peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The results show that MMC-perfusion significantly prolongs graft survival. Treatment of recipients with MMC has no effect, whereas MMC-treated donor PBMCs injected into the recipient prolong graft survival. Our findings indicate that the targeted perfusion of donor hearts with MMC-containing solution protects the graft from rejection.