thesis
The effect of immunosuppression on function of kidney allografts in the rat
- Publication date
- 25 November 1970
- Publisher
- Transplantation of living tissues is not a new concept. Greek
mythology presents us with the Chimera in which a goat's body, a
lion's head and a dragon's tail are joined to form a terrifying monster.
Ancient Indian surgeons made use of local skin flaps for rhinoplasty,
an art which has been practiced in Italy as early as the fifteenth
century.
Various transplantation experiments were performed by John
Hunter in the eighteenth century. However, a systematic approach to
the study of transplantation biology has only been started during the
present century when technical progress in the field of surgery
(Carrel and Guthrie 1905, 1906; Carrel 1908) made it possible to
transplant a large variety of tissues and organs.
Unfortunately, surgical problems are not the only obstacles to
successful transplantation. lt has been known for a long time that
tissue transplants in which the donor is also the recipient (autografts)
or transplants between animals of the same inbred strain (isografts)
will survive. Without complications this also applies to grafts between
identical twins. On the other hand, transplants between two randomly
chosen individuals of the same species called homografts or allografts,
behave like autografts for a few days only, after which progressive
damage occurs, leading to loss of function and destruction of
the graft. This process, called rejection, is usually complete within a
few weeks following transplantation and is invariably accompanied
by infiltration with inflammatory cells, predominantly of the mononuclear
type. In transplants exchanged between members of different
species (heterografts, syn. xenografts), a much more violent and
rapid rejection may take place.