Uremic escape of renal allograft rejection

It is demonstrated in rats that, in the presence of early postoperative severe but transient uremia, the survival of first set Brown-Norway (BN) renal allografts in Lewis (LEW) recipients is at least three times prolonged when compared to non-uremic controls. This phenomenon is called "uremic escape of renal allograft rejection'. By means of lethal X-irradiation of donors of BN kidneys transplanted into transiently uremic and non-uremic LEW recipients, the presence of passenger lymphocyte immunocompetence is demonstrated to be obligatory for this phenomenon to occur. As a result of mobile passenger lymphocyte immunocompetence, a graft-versus-host (GVH) reaction is elicited in the spleens of LEW recipients of BN kidneys which amplifies the host response. The splenomegaly observed in LEW recipients of BN kidneys is caused not only by this GVH reaction, which is shown to be exquisitely sensitive to even mild uremia. It is also contributed to by a proliferative response of the host against the graft (which latter response is equated with an in vivo equivalent of a unilateral mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR)), since the reduction in spleen weights caused by abrogation of mobile passenger lymphocyte immunocompetence brought about by lethal donor X-irradiation is increased significantly by early postoperative severe but transient uremia. It is concluded that in uremic escape of renal allograft rejection both reactions are suppressed by uremia during the early postoperative period. Prolonged survival is brought about, since on the one hand suppression of the splenic GVH reaction abolishes its amplifying effect on the host response, and on the other hand suppression of the splenic MLR equivalent interferes with the generation of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes and enhances the generation of suppressor cells.