Renal Transplantation in the Inbred Rat

SUMMARY In a renal allograft system crossing a major immunogenetic barrier where acute rejection leads uniformly to a nonfunctioning kidney in 7 days, it is shown that pretreating the donor of the kidney with high doses of cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, or procarbazine markedly reduces the allograft rejection pattern of the organ in a significant number of untreated recipients. This effect is considered to be caused by a reduction of graft immunogenicity following the destruction of nonparenchymal cells of hematopoietic origin which are the stimuli to the effector mechanisms of rejection. This pretreatment of donors, or perhaps even the isolated organ perfusion preparation, may be effective in reducing the degree of donor-recipient histoincompatibility in cadaveric organ transplantation