CYTOKINES AND CELL-SURFACE MARKERS IN PREDICTION OF CARDIAC ALLOGRAFT-REJECTION

Endomyocardial biopsy is generally used to quantify heart allograft re jection and guide immunotherapy. Biopsy, however, is invasive, costly, and risky. Since rejection requires lymphocyte activation, the purpos e of this study was to assess alternative methods to evaluate rejectio n dynamics by investigating serum levels of cytokines and cell surface markers after heart transplantation. Interleukin 2-receptor bearing C D4(+)T (IL-2R/CD4) cell levels were higher in the peripheral blood of human transplant recipients with rejection grade 2 (p<0.02). HLA-DR/CD 3 levels were somewhat higher in rejection grade 2. There was no corre lation between biopsy scores and serum levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha), IL-2, or percentage of T cell, NK cell, B cell, CD4(+)T cell, CD8(+)T cell, HLA-DR/CD4, HLA-DR/CD8, IL-2R/CD3, IL-2R/CD8. Inte rleukin-1 (IL-1 beta) was not detectable in all of the samples. The cu rrent studies suggest that monitoring lymphocyte IL-2R/CD4 and HLA-DR/ CD3 levels is useful in predicting cardiac transplant rejection.