Prolonged survival of glutaraldehyde-treated skin homografts.

Treatment of mouse skin homografts in vitro with glutaraldehyde prolonged their average survival time from 12.4 to 39.2 days, presumably because the reagent became covalently bound to the histocompatibility antigen sites (or in their close vicinity) and shielded them from the immune apparatus of the recipient. The attachment to skin of the inert polymer poly((L)-lysine) via this bifunctional reagent increased the average survival time to 52.9 days. The simplicity and versatility of this approach might make it possible to screen a large number of reagents that can bind covalently to tissue constituents under physiological conditions. It seems possible that a particular treatment leading to a new contact surface in the transplant might favor the acceptance of homografts as well as of heterografts.