| First Author | Campos L | Year | 1995 |
| Journal | Transplantation | Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 2 | Pages | 187-91 |
| PubMed ID | 7839439 | Mgi Jnum | J:22548 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:70409 | Citation | Campos L, et al. (1995) Survival of MHC-deficient mouse heterotopic cardiac allografts. Transplantation 59(2):187-91 |
| abstractText | The immunologic mechanisms involved in the destruction of murine cardiac allografts were evaluated using MHC-deficient mice. Specifically, we examined the survival of immediately vascularized heterotopic adult cardiac grafts deficient in MHC class I, MHC class II, or both MHC class I and II antigens following transplantation to allogeneic hosts. We observed indefinite cardiac graft survival when donors lacked MHC class II or both MHC I and II antigens. In parallel experiments, we studied the survival of cardiac grafts harvested from normal donors in recipients severely depleted of either CD4 (class II-deficient mice) or CD8 (class I-deficient mice) T cells. Graft survival was dramatically prolonged in the absence of CD4 but not CD8 T cells. Collectively, our results demonstrate that the interaction of host CD4 T cells with donor class II antigens is critical to the rejection of murine cardiac grafts. |