Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Microchimerism as the sign of biphasic cell migration between the graft and the recipient has attracted more and more attention in transplantation tolerance.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between spousal life and occurrence of chimerism and the acute rejection after renal transplantation.
METHODS: The female kidney transplant recipients (except the females have reproductive history) were divided into two groups: husband living kidney donation group and unrelated male cadaver kidney donation group. Control group was set for husband recipients who received the living kidney donation of their wives. The Y chromosome from the male donor in the female recipients was detected by STR to reflect the presence of microchimerism as well as the correlation with acute rejection. The effect of the donor kidney was compared between spouses.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Though there was a higher rate of human leukocyte antigen mismatches and elder donor age between spouses, the female recipients received husband living kidney donation detected the microchimerism more easily when compared with the female recipients received unrelated male cadaver kidney donation, and female recipients received husband living kidney donation could recover quickly with lower acute rejection rate. Compared with the husband received wife living kidney donation, the wife received husband living kidney donation had better effect after renal transplantation. It indicates that long terms of spousal life leads to more opportunity of accepting her husband’s humoral, so result in the immune tolerance with good kidney compatibility after renal transplantation and low acute rejection rates.