ADHESION MOLECULES AND REJECTION OF RENAL-ALLOGRAFTS

Despite an increasing amount of immunohistochemical and molecular biol ogy data relating to the pathogenesis of kidney transplant rejection, the pathological diagnosis of this condition still rests on routine li ght microscopy. The detection of changes in expression and distributio n of adhesion molecules in renal allograft biopsies may open a new era of increased accuracy of rejection diagnosis. Of the Various adhesion molecule reactivities, peritubular capillary VCAM-1 staining appears to be the most specific finding for chronic rejection. This same stain ing reaction is seen in acute rejection, but may have less specificity in that setting.