Phenotype, activation status, and suppressor activity of host lymphocytes during acute rejection and after cyclosporine-induced unresponsiveness of rat cardiac allografts.

Serial changes in phenotype, cell cycle, and functional behavior of lymphocyte subpopulations occurring both during acute rejection in unmodified hosts and in long-surviving heterotopic cardiac allografts in rats treated with cyclosporine (CsA) were studied. Using flow cytometry, RNA and DNA content of cells was examined during various phases of cell activation. In animals acutely rejecting their grafts, numbers of cells infiltrating the grafts and in host spleen in G1 phase (higher RNA content) increased, starting from day 3, and peaked by 5-6 days posttransplantation, and numbers of cells in S/G2/M phase (higher DNA content) remained stable. Similar, although slightly delayed changes were noted in CsA-treated recipients. The ratio of T helper (Th) to T suppressor/cytotoxic (Ts/c) phenotype cells infiltrating acutely rejecting grafts by day 3, was 1.6; it inverted abruptly to 0.7 by days 5-6, suggesting a preponderance of Ts/c during the later stages of allograft rejection. Ratio inversion occurred slightly later in host spleen and later in peripheral blood. Similarly, treatment with CsA produced a transient depression of Th, with recovery of the Th: Ts/c ratio during weeks 3-4 following transplantation. Adoptive transfer studies were then performed to investigate the functional significance of the T cell subsets. Survival of test grafts was prolonged significantly (ca. 14 days, P less than 0.001) when cells infiltrating grafts and spleen were transferred during inversion of Th:Ts/c; before that period, test graft survival was shortened in a second-set manner. These experiments suggest that suppressor cells may be responsible for resolution of acute rejection, as well as for host unresponsiveness seen after CsA treatment, and they represent an important homeostatic host mechanism following immunological stimulation.