TreaT Urine Assay indicates transplant success

Success of a kidney transplant depends on how strongly the patient’s immune system reacts to the foreign cells. Scientists from the e:Med consortium e:Kid coordinated by Dr. Nina Babel have now developed the TreaT test, which uses cells from the patient's urine after a kidney transplantation to predict how well the recipient will tolerate the donor kidney. As a result, the accompanying immunosuppressive therapy can be adapted to each individual and over-medication can be prevented.

Whether a kidney transplant is tolerated by the patient depends on how strongly the recipient's immune system responds to the donor organ cells. Analysis of the recipient's T cells could provide information on the risk of transplant rejection. So far, however, these T cells that respond to the transplant have not yet been routinely examined and immunosuppressive therapy cannot be individually adapted.
Scientists from the e:Med consortium e:Kid coordinated by Dr. Nina Babel have now developed the TreaT test, which uses cells from the patient's urine after a kidney transplantation to predict how well the recipient will tolerate the donor kidney.
In order to examine the recipient's reactive T cells, ideally the recipient's immune cells must be stimulated with donor kidney cells. So far this has been the problem: it is difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of donor cells or adequate antigens to stimulate the recipient's T cells in the lab. So far, cells from HLA banks have been used for stimulation, but their HLA type often does not fit optimally. Alternatively, splenocytes from the spleen are used, but they are only available from deceased donors, in small quantities and do not exactly reflect the tissue specificity.
The research team of the e:Med consortium e:Kid led by Professor Babel at the Charité uses urine from already transplanted patients for their TreaT test, which consequently also contains cells from the donor kidney and is both easily accessible and sufficiently available. Renal tubular epithelial cells are extracted from this urine and can be easily collected. The kidney epithelial cells are cultured together with immune cells from the recipient's blood. If patient has T cells specific against donor cells, T cells will reactivate, produce specific activation markers and effectors cytokines. Using these activation molecules donor-reactive T cells can be identified, quantified and characterized in more details. Further investigations have shown that the quantification and characterization of the donor-specific so-called allogeneic T cells with this ex vivo assay is superior to previous tests. In a small pilot study, this assay was able to identify striking T cell profiles in patients who later suffered transplant rejection.
This newly developed test can employ the reactive T cells to give an indication of how high the risk of rejection and how well the transplant will be tolerated. On this basis, the accompanying immunosuppressive therapy can thus be adapted to the individual patient and over- or under-medication can be prevented.

 

Original publication:

Thieme, C. J., B. J. D. Weist, A. Mueskes, T. Roch, U. Stervbo, K. Rosiewicz, P. Wehler, M. Stein, P. Nickel, A. Kurtz, N. Lachmann, M. Choi, M. Schmueck-Henneresse, T. H. Westhoff, P. Reinke, and N. Babel (2019). "The TreaT-Assay: A Novel Urine-Derived Donor Kidney Cell-Based Assay for Prediction of Kidney Transplantation Outcome " Sci Rep 9(1): 1--12. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-55442-x.pdf

 

Leader and contact person:

e:Kid Consortium

Prof. Dr. Nina Babel, Department of Nephrology, Charité, Berlin, nina.babel@charite.de

https://b-crt.de/en/research/research-fields/immune-system/immune-cell-therapy/transplantation-virology/

 

 

 

 

Diese Seite nutzt Website Tracking-Technologien von Dritten, um ihre Dienste anzubieten. Ich bin damit einverstanden und kann meine Einwilligung jederzeit mit Wirkung für die Zukunft widerrufen oder ändern.

Einstellungen Akzeptieren ImpressumDatenschutz