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Neonatal desensitization allows long-term survival of neural xenotransplants without immunosuppression

Abstract

Preclinical development of human cells for potential therapeutic application in neurodegenerative diseases requires that their long-term survival, stability and functional efficacy be studied in animal models of human disease. Here we describe a strategy for long-term immune protection of human fetal and stem cell–derived neural cells transplanted into the adult rat brain, by desensitizing the host rat to similar cells in the neonatal period, without the need for additional immunosuppression.

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Figure 1: Representative photomicrographs of hPF cells transplanted into the adult rat striatum.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Morgan and A. Gallimore for advice and guidance with immunology experiments, H. Hemmings (Cornell University) for the generous gift of antibody to DARPP-32, T. Hayes for help with acquiring confocal imaging, and A. Heuer for assistance with assembling the images. These studies were supported by the UK Medical Research Council, the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine and EU FP6 project funding.

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C.M.K. and S.V.P. carried out all experiments. C.S., R.P. and N.N.A. procured the human tissue. A.B. and N.D.A. prepared human embryonic stem cells. C.M.K. wrote the manuscript with S.B.D. and A.E.R., who supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Claire M Kelly.

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Supplementary Figures 1–2, Supplementary Methods (PDF 244 kb)

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Kelly, C., Precious, S., Scherf, C. et al. Neonatal desensitization allows long-term survival of neural xenotransplants without immunosuppression. Nat Methods 6, 271–273 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1308

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