ADULT ACQUIRED TOLERANCE TO HOMOGRAFTS.
Abstract
Preliminary experiments in the dog and extensive investigation in the rabbit showed that subcellular transplantation antigen infusion and short term immune suppressive therapy may result in prolonged survival of allografts in these species. However, the results were disappointing in that no truly long term graft survival was induced in either animal species by subcellular antigen infusion and conventional immune suppressive therapy prior to grafting. The effectiveness of immune suppression with both 6-mercaptopurine and methotrexate was insufficient to permit induction of a clinically useful degree of tolerance, and increasing the doses of the immune suppressive drugs was prohibited by the toxicity of these compounds. Efforts were directed toward finding a more effective and less dangerous immune suppressive agent for use in further attempts to induce adult immunological tolerance. It was determined that an alphaglobulin fraction extracted from outdated human plasma contains potent immunosuppressive material which can be recovered by column chromatography. The active fraction is apparently entirely nontoxic upon administration to rabbits, mice, and dogs. The material is somewhat more potent than Imuran as an immune suppressive agent. Following a single injection of the alphaglobulin allograft, survivals have been prolonged up to 40 days. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 31, 1967
- Accession Number
- AD0650400
Entities
People
- Richard H. Egdahl
Organizations
- Boston University