Rejection of murine congenic bile ducts: a model for immune-mediated bile duct disease

Immune-mediated injury of prenatal and postnatal extrahepatic bile duct epithelium has been poorly characterized. In a transplantation model of bile duct allografts, segments of the common bile duct from fetal day 18, postnatal day 7 and day 21, and adult (greater than 6-weeks) mice were grafted under the renal capsule of adult congenic mice. The progression of rejection injury in these bile duct allografts was then followed by histological evaluation at 1-week intervals. After 3 weeks there was a significant difference in the number of fetal congenic bile duct grafts that had maintained their luminal architecture compared with the more mature adult congenic grafts that had fibrosclerosed. The onset and progression of the rejection injury in the adult congenic bile duct grafts was associated with an induction of class I and class II histocompatibility antigen expression in the adult bile duct epithelium; the severity of this injury could be attenuated by treatment of the recipient mice with cyclosporin A. Thus, the fibrosclerosing lesion of extrahepatic ducts observed in this model of rejection injury is similar to the histopathology of neonatal biliary atresia or primary sclerosing cholangitis, and susceptibility to this injury is dependent on the age of the donor tissue. The immune nature of the injury and the ontogeny of expression of histocompatibility antigen in bile duct tissue indicate that the above factors may be important to the pathogenesis of these extrahepatic bile duct diseases. This experimental model may be used to test for novel factors that may modulate immune responses directed against extrahepatic bile duct epithelium.