Syngeneic renal transplantation increases the number of renal dendritic cells in the rat.

Dendritic cells participate in the regulation of CD4 and CD8 T cells during transplant rejection. Understanding what causes increased numbers of dendritic cells to appear in the renal transplant is therefore important. We performed syngeneic renal transplants between rats. We used the monoclonal antibody OX62 to detect dendritic cells, and OX6 to detect major histocompatability complex (MHC) Class II in the renal transplant. One week after transplant, dendritic cells appeared. This indicates that the injury of transplantation itself is sufficient to increase the number of dendritic cells in the kidney in a model where there is no alloreactivity.