Lack of evidence that a transplanted liver causes acute graft-versus-host disease in rats. A comparison of liver and spleen grafts.

In this study, we used rat transplant models to investigate whether--and, if so, to what extent--transplanted liver had the potential to incite graft-versus-host disease, compared with the disease induced by a spleen graft. Livers from PVG(RT1c) rats were transplanted orthotopically into (DAxPVG)F1 (RT1a/c) rats and vascularized spleen grafts from PVG rats were transplanted heterotopically into (DAxPVG)F1 recipients. The intensity of the GVH disease was assessed by the recipients' morbidity and mortality, recipient-type serum class I (RT1Aa) antigen titer, and histological examination. The recipients of spleen grafts died within 14 and 23 days of transplantation; all animals had lost body weight and showed typical GVH signs, such as ear erythema, diarrhea, and alopecia. However, all the recipients bearing liver grafts survived indefinitely and did not demonstrate weight loss or the typical symptoms associated with GVH disease. The skins, tongues, and intestines of the liver-grafted rats were virtually normal at histological examination, whereas the livers, salivary glands, and skins of spleen-grafted rats were infiltrated by immunoblasts. The recipient-type serum RT1Aa antigen titer increased progressively until death in the spleen graft but not the liver graft recipients. These results provide evidence that suggest that transplanted liver is less likely than transplanted spleen to initiate the GVH disease in rats.