TRANSPLANTATION AND POTENTIAL IMMORTALITY OF MAMMALIAN TISSUES

1. Serial transplantation of tumors made it possible in 1901 and following years to draw the conclusion that various mammalian tissues have potential immortality. Serial transplantations of normal tissues did not succeed at first, because the homoioreaction on the part of the lymphocytes and connective tissue of the host injures the transplant. 2. In continuation of these experiments we found that cartilage of the rat can be transplanted serially to other rats at least for a period of 3 years. At the end of that time great parts of the transplanted cartilage and perichondrium are alive. 3. Not only the cartilage of young rats can be homoiotransplanted, but also the cartilage of very old rats which are nearing the end of life. By using such animals we have been able to obtain cartilage and perichondrium approaching an age of 6 years which is almost double the average age of a rat. 4. We found that cartilage can be homoiotransplanted more readily than other tissues for the following reasons: (a) While in principle the homoioreaction towards cartilage is the same as against other tissues, cartilage elicits this reaction with less intensity; (b) cartilage is better able to resist the invasion of lymphocytes and connective tissue than the majority of other tissues; (c) a gradual adaptation between transplant and host seems to take place in the case of cartilage transplantation, as a result of which the lymphocytic reaction on the part of the host tissue decreases progressively the longer the cartilage is kept in the strange host. 5. At time of examination we not only found living transplanted cartilage tissue, but also perichondrial tissue, which in response to a stimulus apparently originating in the necrotic central cartilage, had been proliferating and replacing it. These results suggest that it may perhaps be possible under favorable conditions to keep cartilage alive indefinitely through serial transplantations. 6. At the same time these experiments permit the analysis of the factors which are favorable or unfavorable to the continued life of the transplants. Favorable factors are: (a) Well preserved perichondrium around transplant; (b) cellular newly formed perichondrial cartilage-though it is doubtful whether such young cartilage cells allow a state of stable equilibrium. Host connective tissue does not invade transplant under these conditions. Unfavorable factors are: (a) Cartilage differentiation and the production of paraplastic substances (hyaline capsules in parts of transplant far removed from vessels and sources of oxygen and food; (b) cartilage necrosis when a still greater distance from nourishment exists; (c) disturbance of equilibrium between host connective tissue and transplant due to above conditions, resulting in (d) attack by host connective tissue on transplanted cartilage, which is the chief danger in the preservation of the life of the whole transplant 7. It is pointed out that also in old age there exist similar problems of disturbances of tissue equilibria, due to degenerative changes in certain parenchymatous structures and to proliferative processes on the part of connective tissue and glia elements together with increase in paraplastic structures.