Hi Raza:
I'm not an expert in the issue but i learnt weeks ago in an Inmunology master class about KIR receptors and alloreactivity in transplantation some interesting things.
KIR receptors normally acts as sensors of the cells. They function by binding to class I MHC and when they bind the signaling cascade repress genes that exerts the natural killer function of NK cells. If a cell downregulates the expression of class I MHC (in the case of viral infections for example), then the NK cells don't recognize it and kill that cell. It's known that NK cells pass through a kind of negative selection in bone marrow. There they are exposed to cells that present MHC class I so there is a receptor compatibily selection of the molecules that will be expressed in the surface of the mature and ready to kill NK cells. So in theory I understand that if you select a compatible HLA donor for MHC class I, you are selecting a compatible donor of KIR receptors. However some experiments conclude that in bone marrow transplantation it could be benefical in the 6 months post-transplantation and particullary the graft versus host disease incidence
can be diminshed.
In Kidney and Liver transplantation it's not allways needed a perfect match for HLA, because these organs seem to be more tolerogenic, specially kidney.
I would say that it's not proved that genotyping KIR receptors can help in transplantation of these organs, as they are minor histocompatibility complex and don't have too much variability on the alleles, but you probably will find in the literature this and the oppposite in different studies with different pacients. Unfortunately there's no conclusion as far as i know.
Hope to be useful,
Carolina Barra
Inmunologia Molecular
Institut de Biomedicina i Biotecnologia "Vicent Villar i Palasi"
Campus UAB-Barcelona-Spain
________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:36:20 +0000
From: ali ali <sirgreat76 from hotmail.com>
Subject: [Immunology] RE: Immuno Digest, Vol 40, Issue 4
To: <immuno from oat.bio.indiana.edu>, <immuno from magpie.bio.indiana.edu>
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Hi All,
Please guide!
I am searching about the role of KIR in Transplantation(Kidney and Liver). KIR genotyping could be benefical in HLA matched donor and recipient.
Raza S.
Department of biotechnology
University of Karachi.
End of Immuno Digest, Vol 40, Issue 5
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