Developments in Brief : Antibodies Used in Tissue Transplanting

Stanford researchers have reported what appears to be the first significant use of monoclonal antibodies to help transplant tissues in animals.

Transplant recipients often have trouble incorporating foreign tissues into their bodies, and doctors have had to rely on powerful and often dangerous drugs to keep such patients from rejecting the transplants. If the Stanford discovery eventually helps humans overcome the rejection problem, it would make transplants much safer.

“This is an exciting model because we were able to create a tolerance in the animals (mice) with one course of monoclonal antibodies and no other drug treatment,” said Dr. C. Garrison Fathman.

Antibodies are immune system proteins that attach to foreign materials, whether disease organisms or tissue, and hasten their destruction. Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-produced hormones made specifically to target certain other proteins.

In a report in the July 17 issue of Science magazine, Fathman and Dr. Judith A. Shizuru said their method involved using the antibodies to temporarily ward off a certain type of white blood cell that is instrumental in stimulating the body to reject foreign tissue.

These blood cells, called helper T lymphocytes, eventually grow back to normal levels, but the researchers said the new cells apparently stop recognizing the transplanted tissue as foreign.