Abstract:

BACKGROUND: With the development of clinical medicine and the utilization of immunosuppressive agents, allotransplantation has gained remarkable effects. However, because of the shortage of human donor livers, the liver transplantation doctors realize the value of liver xenotransplantation again. The porcine is thought to be an alternative source for human.
OBJECTIVE: The paper mainly takes pig for example to explore the major immunologic barriers, which include hyper acute rejection, acute vascular rejection and acute cellular rejection, and the research progress addressing how to overcome rejection and induce immune tolerance.
METHODS: The databases of CNKI and SPRINGER were retrieved by the first author using key words of “liver transplantation, xenograft, immune rejection, mechanism” both in Chinese and English from 1994 to 2010. Documents closely related to the major immunologic barriers of liver xenotransplantation, how to overcome rejection, and induce immune tolerance were published in authoritative journals for the past few years were included, and the repetitive studies were excluded. 
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Total 205 articles were gotten by computers according to criteria, of which 29 articles (2 Chinese texts, 27 English texts) were selected. The important direction of clinical application study in liver xenotransplantation is the immunologic barriers, how to overcome rejection and induce immune tolerance. With the development of liver xenotransplantation rejection, recognition and the utilization of new immunosuppressive agents, liver xenotransplantation would become an important way to solve donor liver shortage currently.