Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Cervical or intraperitoneal transplantation is used in establishing heart transplantation. However, the transplanted heart is prone to adhere to surrounding tissues and restrict heart beat due to the stegnotic cervical space. Abdominal aorta is relative easily for anastomosing and has high vascular pass rate, which can be used for long-term observation of chronic graft vascular lesion.
OBJECTIVE: To explore an improved technique of mouse ventral heterotopic heart transplantation and construct an animal model for the study of transplantation immunity.
METHODS: The donor heart aorta and the recipient ventral aorta, the donor pulmonary artery and the recipient inferior caval vein, were anastomosed by using the end-to-side suture technique respectively. All animals were divided into 3 groups. Isograft group: C57 to C57 mice transplantation; Allograft group; Babl/c to C57 mice transplantation; Anti-CD45RB mAb group: Anti-CD45RB mAb (200 μg) were intraperitoneal injected into Babl/c to C57 mice. The transplanted heart beat strongly and the mouse survived for over 72 hours were considered signs of model success. The observation lasted for 40 days after transplantation.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The successful rates were 83.3% (30/36). In experiments, the recipient preparation time was (15±2) minutes, harvesting time of donors was (8±1) minutes, and the recipient operation time was (33±2) minutes. In CD45RB mAb group, the average of the survival of heart allograft had a significant difference compared with those of the no therapy group (P=0.001). The animal model is stable and can be used for the study of transplantation immunity. A single injection of CD45RB mAb in mice can induce stable long-term acceptance of heart allografts.