Human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G), a non-classical MHC I protein, plays an essential role in immune tolerance and is associated with a lower incidence of graft rejection and cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV). To examine the pattern of HLA-G expression post-transplantation we determined that HLA-G can be up-regulated in smooth muscle cells (SMCs) following exposure to everolimus. We also determined that HLA-G at 500 and 1000 ng/ml reduces SMC proliferation. In further studies, treatment with HLA-G inhibited TNFα-stimulated neutrophil adhesion to endothelial cells (ECs) at all concentrations tested (0.1-1 ng/ml), suggesting a role in inflammation. The expression of HLA-G is influenced by a polymorphism in the HLA-G gene. We sought to determine if the 14bp insertion/deletion polymorphism can predict the development of CAV. There was no association between this polymorphism and CAV; however, this study had a small number of patients; therefore further investigations are needed to confirm these findings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/43259 |
| Date | 05 December 2013 |
| Creators | Mociornita, Amelia Georgiana |
| Contributors | Rao, Vivek, Li, Ren-Ke |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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