Extracellular ATP binds to purinergic receptors and promotes inflammatory responses. We tested whether oxidized ATP (oATP), P2X7 receptor antagonist can attenuate acute kidney allograft rejection.
Brown Norway kidney allografts were transplanted into Lewis recipients. Three groups were defined: oATP (n=8), cyclosporine A (n=6), and no treatment (n=8). On day 7, we assessed kidney allograft survival, function, and rejection characteristics. We further determined T-cell, B-cell, and macrophage response to oATP in vivo and in vitro and examined intragraft inflammatory gene transcripts.
Kaplan-Meier survival analyses demonstrated significantly better graft survival rates in oATP and CsA groups compared with no treatment (P<0.05). Similarly, serum creatinine (Scr) and BUN levels were significantly lower in oATP and CsA groups (P<0.05). oATP reduced both T cell-mediated rejection and antibody-mediated rejection, inhibited B-cell and T-cell activation, and downregulated intragraft IL-6 mRNA levels (P<0.0001). In vitro, oATP prevented proliferation in mixed lymphocyte reaction assays, and inhibited macrophage P2X7R activity in a dose-dependent manner.
Our findings suggest that oATP mitigates kidney allograft rejection by inhibiting T-cell, B-cell, and macrophage activity and indicate a potential role for the purinergic system and oATP in solid organ transplantation.
Copyright © 2020 by the American Society of Nephrology.

Although CD8(+) T cells have been implied in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS), the molecular mechanisms mediating CD8(+) T-cell migration across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) into the central nervous system (CNS) are ill defined. Using in vitro live cell imaging, we directly compared the multistep extravasation of activated CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells across primary mouse brain microvascular endothelial cells (pMBMECs) as a model for the BBB under physiological flow. Significantly higher numbers of CD8(+) than CD4(+) T cells arrested on pMBMECs under noninflammatory and inflammatory conditions. While CD4(+) T cells polarized and crawled prior to their diapedesis, the majority of CD8(+) T cells stalled and readily crossed the pMBMEC monolayer preferentially via a transcellular route. T-cell arrest and crawling were independent of G-protein-coupled receptor signaling. Rather, absence of endothelial ICAM-1 and ICAM-2 abolished increased arrest of CD8(+) over CD4(+) T cells and abrogated T-cell crawling, leading to the efficient reduction of CD4(+) , but to a lesser degree of CD8(+) , T-cell diapedesis across ICAM-1(null) /ICAM-2(-/-) pMBMECs. Thus, cellular and molecular mechanisms mediating the multistep extravasation of activated CD8(+) T cells across the BBB are distinguishable from those involved for CD4(+) T cells.
© 2016 The Authors. European Journal of Immunology published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.