News

BIH Charité Clinician Scientist Symposium in Honor and Memory of Duška Dragun
Stacks Image 24080
28 May 2021 - 29 May 2021
BIH Charité Clinician Scientist Symposium in Honor and Memory of Duška Dragun

The symposium is composed of several components: First and foremost, it will commemorate Prof. Duška Dragun, the former Director of the BIH Biomedical Innovation Academy (BIA) and Director of the BIH Charité Clinician Scientist Program, who passed away in December 2020, and will be joined by stakeholders from academia and science policy. In addition, there will be scientific sessions, which will form tandems of program fellows and invited speaker. During a digital certificate ceremony on the evening of 28 May 2021, some 50 alumni will be bid farewell. The event language is English.

When
28 and 29 May 2021
10:00 - 6:30 pm

How
Online Event (semi-digital)

Registration
To receive the login link please register here.
Back
Stacks Image 27655
Our manuscript "Depletion of donor dendritic cells ameliorates immunogenicity of both skin and hind limb transplants" has been accepted for publication in Frontiers in Immunology, section Alloimmunity and Transplantation. Authors are Muhammad Imtiaz Ashraf, Joerg Mengwasser, Anja Reutzel-Selke, Dietrich Polenz, Kirsten Führer, Steffen Lippert, Peter Tang, Edward Michaelis, Rusan Catar, Johann Pratschke, Christian Witzel, Igor M. Sauer, Stefan G. Tullius, and Barbara Kern.

Acute cellular rejection remains a significant obstacle affecting successful outcomes of organ transplantation including vascularized composite tissue allografts (VCA). Donor antigen presenting cells (APC), particularly dendritic cells (DC), orchestrate early alloimmune responses by activating recipient effector T cells. Employing a targeted approach, we investigated the impact of donor-derived conventional DC (cDC) and APC on the immunogenicity of skin and skin-containing VCA grafts, using mouse models of skin and hind limb transplantation.
By post-transplantation day 6, skin grafts demonstrated severe rejections, characterized by predominance of recipient CD4 T cells. In contrast, hind limb grafts showed moderate rejection, primarily infiltrated by CD8 T cells. While donor depletion of cDC and APC reduced frequencies, maturation, and activation of DC in all analysed tissues of skin transplant recipients, reduction in DC activities was only observed in the spleen of hind limb recipients. Donor cDC and APC depletion did not impact all lymphocyte compartments but significantly affected CD8 T cells and activated CD4 T in lymph nodes of skin recipients. Moreover, both donor APC and cDC depletion attenuated the Th17 immune response, evident by significantly reduced Th17 (CD4+IL-17+) cells in the spleen of skin recipients and reduced levels of IL-17E and lymphotoxin-α in the serum samples of both skin and hind limb recipients. In conclusion, our findings underscore the highly immunogenic nature of skin component in VCA. The depletion of donor APC and cDC mitigates the immunogenicity of skin grafts while exerting minimal impact on VCA.

Archive


Categories

Year

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purpose illustrated in the Disclaimer. By closing this banner, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to the use of cookies.