The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.

wikigene or wiki gene protein drug chemical gene disease author authorship tracking collaborative publishing evolutionary knowledge reputation system wiki2.0 global collaboration genes proteins drugs chemicals diseases compound
Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 

Chimerism and tolerance in transplantation.

Studies in experimental models (1953-1956) demonstrated that acquired donor-specific allotolerance in immunologically immature or irradiated animals is strongly associated with donor leukocyte chimerism. Bone marrow transplantation in immune-deficient or cytoablated human recipients was a logical extension (1968). In contrast, clinical (1959) and then experimental organ transplantation was systematically accomplished in the apparent absence of leukocyte chimerism. Consequently, it was assumed for many years that success with organ and bone marrow transplantation involved fundamentally different mechanisms. With the discovery in 1992 of small numbers of donor leukocytes in the tissues or blood of long-surviving organ recipients (microchimerism), we concluded that organ engraftment was a form of leukocyte chimerism-dependent partial tolerance. In this initially controversial paradigm, alloengraftment after both kinds of transplantation is the product of a double immune reaction in which responses, each to the other, of coexisting donor and recipient immune systems results in variable reciprocal clonal exhaustion, followed by peripheral clonal deletion. It was proposed with Rolf Zinkernagel that the individual alloresponses are the equivalent of the MHC-restricted T cell recognition of, and host response to, intracellular parasites and that the mechanisms of immune responsiveness, or nonresponsiveness, are governed by the migration and localization of the respective antigens. Elucidation of the mechanisms of nonresponsiveness (clonal exhaustion-deletion and immune ignorance) and their regulation removed much of the historical mystique of transplantation. The insight was then applied to improve the timing and dosage of immunosuppression of current human transplant recipients.[1]

References

  1. Chimerism and tolerance in transplantation. Starzl, T.E. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. (2004) [Pubmed]
 
WikiGenes - Universities