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Transplantation of embryonic porcine neurons may restore neurological function in patients with Parkinson's disease, if immunological rejection could be prevented. This study was performed to investigate the role of natural killer cells (NK cells) and NK1.1+ T cells (NK T cells) in the rejection of neural xenografts. A cell suspension was prepared from the ventral mesencephalon of 26-27-day-old pi

Neural transplantation may become an important treatment alternative for focal brain disorders. To date, the most successful grafts have been obtained in patients with Parkinson's disease. Completely normalized dopamine production and reduction of Parkinsonian symptoms have been demonstrated 10 years after grafting. However, the allogeneic donor tissue has to be obtained from induced abortions, an

Neural transplantation holds promise for focal CNS repair. Owing to the shortage of human donor material, which is derived from aborted embryos, and ethical concerns over its use, animal donor tissue is now considered an appropriate alternative. In the USA, individuals suffering from Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, focal epilepsy or stroke have already received neural grafts from pig em

Transplantation of neural tissue is an effective therapeutical approach in Parkinson's disease, but the method is constrained by the lack of suitable donor material. Embryonic neural tissue from pigs, xenografts, is considered as an alternative source of donor tissue. The attitudes towards neural tissue grafting in general and xenografts in particular were investigated by interviewing a group of p

Transplantation of neural tissue from other species has the potential to improve function in patients with neurodegenerative disorders. We investigated the functional effects of embryonic porcine dopaminergic neurons transplanted in a rat model of Parkinson's disease and the immune responses to the grafts in immunosuppressed and nonimmunosuppressed hosts. Twenty-three rats with unilateral 6-hydrox

Embryonic allografted human tissue in patients with Parkinson's disease has been shown to survive and ameliorate many of the symptoms of this disease. Despite this success, the practical problems of using this tissue coupled to the ethical restrictions of using aborted human fetal tissue have lead to an exploration for alternative sources of suitable material for grafting, including xenogeneic emb

Intracerebral transplantation of porcine embryonic dopamine-producing neurons has been suggested as a method to treat patients with Parkinson's disease. Even though the brain is an immunologically privileged site, neuronal xenografts are usually rejected within a few weeks. T cells are important for this process, but the exact cellular events leading to rejection are poorly characterized. Brain ce

BACKGROUND: The immune response against discordant xenografts in the brain is incompletely understood and remains a major obstacle for future clinical applications of xenogeneic neural tissue transplants in neurodegenerative disorders. To determine the role of antibodies in the rejection process, we compared graft survival and immune reactions between immunoglobulin deficient (IgKO) and normal mic

The causes of death of transplanted neurons are not known in detail, but apoptotic mechanisms involving caspase activation are likely to play a role. We examined whether overexpression of the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 may enhance the survival of dopaminergic [tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-immunoreactive] grafted neurons. For this purpose, we prepared cells from embryonic day 13 ventral mesencephalo

Transplantation of porcine embryonic brain cells, including dopaminergic neurons, from ventral mesencephalon (VM) is considered a potential treatment for patients with Parkinson's disease. In the present study, we characterized the distribution among VM cells of the major porcine endothelial xenoantigen, the Galalpha1,3Gal epitope, and evaluated the cytotoxic effect of anti-Galalpha1,3Gal antibody

Embryonic neural tissue obtained from other species has been considered as a donor tissue source in repair strategies for human neurodegenerative disorders. The neuro- and immunobiology of distantly related species combinations, discordant xenografts, need to be characterised. For this purpose, a small animal model would be an important research tool. Adult guinea-pigs, and adult rats as controls,

In 1992 the Core Assessment Program for Intracerebral Transplantations (CAPIT) was published providing the minimal requirements for a common patient evaluation protocol. Despite the intent, the program was thought to be too laborious to carry out in large scale trials, and it also lacked evaluations of cognitive functions and quality of life. Moreover, the CAPIT was designed for neural transplanta

Neural tissue grafting can be highly effective and constitutes a potentially curative approach for progressive neurodegenerative disorders such as PD. Virtually all signs and symptoms of PD have been shown to improve after grafting but not necessarily simultaneously in one patient. Several technical aspects require improvement before widespread use of neural tissue implants can be recommended. The

It has been suggested that inflammation related to intracerebral transplantation surgery can affect the survival of intrastriatal neural allografts. To test this hypothesis, we transplanted dissociated embryonic mesencephalic tissue from one of two rat strains, Lewis (allogeneic grafts) or Sprague-Dawley (syngeneic grafts), to the striatum of Sprague-Dawley rats. The target striatum was either int

The present study was designed to address two questions. First, can an intrastriatal neural allograft exhibit long-term survival (18 weeks) if the host is immunized by an orthotopic skin graft 6 weeks after neural transplantation (the 6w-Long group)? Second, can an intrastriatal neural allograft survive when the host is challenged by an orthotopic skin allograft either simultaneously (Sim) with th

To address the importance of antigen-presenting cells for the survival of intracerebral neural allografts, allogeneic spleen cells were added to the graft tissue before transplantation. Dissociated embryonic, dopamine-rich mesencephalic and adult spleen tissues were prepared from either inbred Lewis or Sprague-Dawley rats. A mixture of neural and spleen cells was sterotaxically transplanted into t