Fibrosis with Inflammation at One Year Predicts Transplant Functional Decline

We previously observed reduced graft survival for kidney transplants having interstitial fibrosis with subclinical inflammation, but not fibrosis alone, on 1-year protocol biopsy. The current study aimed to determine whether fibrosis with inflammation at 1 year is associated with renal functional decline in a low-risk transplant cohort and to characterize the nature of the inflammation. Subjects were living-donor, tacrolimus/mycophenolate-treated transplant recipients without overt risk factors for reduced graft survival (n=151). Transplants with normal histology (n=86) or fibrosis alone (n=45) on 1-year protocol biopsy had stable renal function between 1 and 5 years, while those having fibrosis with inflammation (n=20) had declining glomerular filtration rate and reduced graft survival. Immunohistochemistry confirmed increased interstitial T-cells and macrophages/dendritic cells in the fibrosis with inflammation group. Gene expression was performed on a subset of biopsies in each group and demonstrated increased expression of transcripts related to innate and cognate immunity in transplants having fibrosis with inflammation. Pathway- and pathological process-specific analyses of microarray profiles revealed that, in fibrosis with inflammation, over-expressed transcripts were enriched for potentially damaging immunological activities including Toll-like receptor signaling, antigen presentation/dendritic cell maturation, interferon gamma-inducible response, cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated and acute rejection-associated genes. Thus, fibrosis with inflammation in 1-year protocol biopsies is associated with reduced graft survival and function and with a rejection-like gene expression signature even in recipients with no clinical risk for inferior outcome. Early interventions aimed at altering rejection-like inflammation may favor improved long-term KTx survival.

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Park WD, Griffin MD, Cornell LD, Cosio FG, Stegall MD