The Journal of heart and lung transplantation : the official publication of the International Society for Heart Transplantation
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J. Heart Lung Transplant. · Dec 1999
Transtracheal gene transfection of donor lungs prior to organ procurement increases transgene levels at reperfusion and following transplantation.
Gene therapy's potential to modify donor organs to better withstand the process of transplantation has yet to be realized. To determine whether gene transfection is feasible to treat the early post-transplant injury of ischemia-reperfusion, we compared transfection of lungs in the donor prior to organ procurement with transfection of harvested ex vivo lungs in a rat single lung transplant model. ⋯ Gene transfection of donor lungs produces significantly higher levels of transgene expression in lungs at the critical time of reperfusion and in the early period following lung transplantation as compared to ex vivo transfection of cold preserved lungs. Transtracheal donor-lung transfection does not appear to result in collateral transfection of other transplantable organs. Local adenoviral-mediated transfection of the lungs is possible in the multiorgan donor prior to organ procurement and may provide the optimal strategy for gene therapeutic manipulations to address post-transplant ischemia-reperfusion injury.