No gender difference in development of obliterative airway disease in rat tracheal allografts

The aim of this study was to test whether donor and recipient gender influence the development of obliterative airway disease in an established rat model of human bronchiolitis obliterans. Rat tracheas were transplanted from male and female Brown-Norway donors into male and female Lewis recipients. Grafts were harvested at days 7, 14 and 21 for morphometric studies and molecular analysis by real-time PCR. At each time point, both epithelial injury and the extent of luminal occlusion of the tracheal allografts were similar between the groups. Furthermore, intragraft mRNA expression for transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta1, interleukin (IL)-2 and interferon (INF)-gamma did not differ between the groups. Our data suggest that gender has no impact on the development of obliterative airway disease in this transplant model.