Monitoring pharmacologically induced immunosuppression by immune repertoire sequencing to detect acute allograft rejection in heart transplant patients: a proof-of-concept diagnostic accuracy study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

It remains difficult to predict and to measure the efficacy of pharmacological immunosuppression. We hypothesized that measuring the B-cell repertoire would enable assessment of the overall level of immunosuppression after heart transplantation.

Methods and findings

In this proof-of-concept study, we implemented a molecular-barcode-based immune repertoire sequencing assay that sensitively and accurately measures the isotype and clonal composition of the circulating B cell repertoire. We used this assay to measure the temporal response of the B cell repertoire to immunosuppression after heart transplantation. We selected a subset of 12 participants from a larger prospective cohort study (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01985412) that is ongoing at Stanford Medical Center and

SUBMITTER: Vollmers C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4605651 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature