Why antibodies turn against self after a transplant

Germinal Centre Autoantibody Responses Following Heart Transplantation

Despite the success of transplantation, many transplants fail due to an immune process known as chronic rejection. Immune responses directed against the recipient's own proteins may provoke chronic rejection, with the development of antibodies against self-protein (autoantibody) being particularly damaging. The use of mouse transplant models will help to explain why autoantibodies develop in human transplant patients. The researchers have shown that the development of autoantibody is dependent on specialized immune cells (CD4 T cells) that come from the donor and are carried into the recipient’s body in the heart graft. However, continued autoantibody production also requires the recipient’s CD4 T cells. This project will examine how the donor and recipient cells contribute to the development of autoantibody production and whether this process can be targeted to prevent chronic rejection.