Four decades of vascularized heterotopic cardiac transplantation in the mouse.

Since the first clinical heart transplant in 1967, there has been a heightened need to understand immune and inflammatory responses to "foreign" tissues. Research efforts in those early days were based on species that would now be considered "large" and were typically out-bred individuals. While this closely mirrors the clinical scenario, where genetic mismatches of donors and recipients can only be minimized in the selection process, these were not ideal models for studying the complexities and nuances of the immune system. Even when the rat was considered the standard model those early endeavors were limited by a small number of rat strains. The mouse model has provided us with an overwhelming array of strains, knockouts, knockins and transgenics that allow us to investigate the many layers of the innate and adaptive immune systems leading to a much greater understanding of immune responses. Fully vascularized heterotopic cardiac transplantation in the mouse has now been with us for four decades; the original papers describing this technique being published by Corry in 1973. In the subsequent 40 years, this technique has been used by many laboratories, including our own, and has become a powerful tool for the investigation of transplant immunity and ischemia reperfusion injury. Given the modern availability of mouse strains and mouse-related reagents, our current understanding of transplant immunity undoubtedly would not exist without such a technique.