Identification of donor origin and condition of transplanted islets in situ in the liver of a type 1 diabetic recipient

Transplantation of islet allografts into type 1 diabetic recipients usually requires multiple pancreas donors to achieve insulin independence. This adds to the challenges of immunological monitoring of islet transplantation currently relying on surrogate immune markers in peripheral blood. We investigated donor origin and infiltration of islets transplanted in the liver of a T1D patient who died of hemorrhagic stroke four months after successful transplantation with two intraportal islet grafts combining six donors. Immunohistological staining for donor HLA using a unique panel of human monoclonal HLA-specific alloantibodies was performed on liver cryosections after validation on cryopreserved kidney, liver and pancreas and compared with auto- and alloreactive T-cell immunity in peripheral blood. HLA specific staining intensity and signal-to-noise ratio varied between tissues from very strong on kidney glomeruli, less in liver, kidney tubuli and endocrine pancreas to least in exocrine pancreas, complicating the staining of inflamed islets in an HLA-disparate liver. Nonetheless, five islets from different liver lobes could be attributed to donors 1, 2 and 5 by staining patterns with multiple HLA-types. All islets showed infiltration with CD8(+) cytotoxic T-cells that was mirrored by progressive alloreactive responses in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to donors 1, 2 and 5 after transplantation. Stably low rates of peripheral islet autoreactive T-cell responses after islet infusion fit with a complete HLA mismatch between grafts and recipient and exclude the possibility that the islet infiltrating CD8 T-cells were autoreactive. HLA-specific immunohistochemistry can identify donor origin in situ and differentiate graft dysfunction and immunological destruction.