Lung transplantation is the only curative option for end-stage chronic respiratory diseases. Although experimental evidences have shown that innate allo-responses impact on the clinical outcome, the knowledge of the involved mechanisms involved is limited. We established a cross-circulatory platform to monitor the early recruitment and activation of immune cells in an extracorporeal donor lung by coupling blood perfusion to cell mapping with a fluorescent marker in the pig, a commonly-used species for lung transplantation.
The perfusing pig cells were easily detectable in lung cell suspensions, in broncho-alveolar lavages and in different areas of lung sections, indicating infiltration of the organ. Myeloid cells granulocytes and monocytic cells were the dominant recruited subsets. This cross-circulation model allowed us to monitor the initial encounter between perfusing cells and the lung graft, in an easy, rapid, and controllable manner, to generate robust information on innate response and test targeted therapies for improvement of lung transplantation outcome.
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Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Allogeneic lung transplantation LT is the sole therapeutic option for terminal chronic respiratory diseases.
While LT practice is increasing worldwide, the outcomes are disappointing with a median survival of 6 years [ 1 ]. In most patients, chronic lung allograft dysfunction CLAD develops following a series of rejection and reparation events and stands as a major impediment to long term survival [ 3 ].
