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Notice: This special project of the ITN will create a world-wide registry of tolerant kidney transplant recipients to act as a resource for identifying new biological markers of kidney transplant tolerance. To initiate the effort, investigators who are aware of such patients are asked to contact Dr. Ken Newell at 404.727.2489 or kenneth_newell@emoryhealthcare.org. Additional information is available at www.immunetolerance.org/registry.

Abstract

The objectives of this study are: (1) to identify patients who are functionally tolerant following kidney transplantation as well as relevant groups for comparison, (2) to enter demographic and clinical data from these patients into an electronic database thereby creating a registry of tolerant kidney transplant recipients in order to facilitate subsequent mechanistic studies, and (3) to use cutting edge research technologies to define surrogate markers of tolerance and gain new insights into immune mechanisms underlying tolerance induction in humans.

The study will compare eight immunologically distinct groups of kidney transplant recipients: tolerant group, acceptors, graft loss group, monotherapy group, standard immunotherapy group, identical twins, living donors and chronic rejectors. It is hoped that comparison between the groups will reveal the biomarkers of tolerance. A battery of assays developed in collaboration with the ITN’s Tolerance Assay Group (TAG) will be the basis of the comparison. Assays will be performed on both patient and donor specimens. Assays will include cytokine snapshots, HLA-genotype, gene expression, T cell receptor diversity, dendritic cell assays, trans-vivo delayed-type hypersensitivity as well as standard allograft biopsies and many of these provided by the ITN’s Core facilities. We hope that multivariate analysis of these assays will reveal a set of tolerance markers that could be used as predictors of successful weaning from immunosuppression. The ITN Clinical Specimen Repository Core Facility will process and bank all clinical specimens obtained for this study, with the hope that it will become a valuable resource open to the community for additional future studies of this rare cohort.

Participating Investigators

	Kenneth Newell, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
	William Burlingham, University of Wisconsin. Madison, WI
	Alan D. Kirk, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
	Chris Larsen, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
	Robert Lechler, Imperial College, UK
	William Marks, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA
	Jean-Paul Soulillou, Nantes, France
	Angus Thomson, University of Pittsburgh, PA

News & Recent Developments

	Different qualitative and quantitative regulation of V beta TCR transcripts during early acute allograft rejection and tolerance induction - J Immunol [go]
	Human allograft acceptance is associated with immune regulation - J Clin Invest [go]

Resources & Interesting Links

	ITN Registry Website [go]
	Emory Healthcare [go]