About this Research Topic
The immune tolerance induction after organ transplantation avoids the adverse effects of life-long immunosuppressive therapy, which implicates high costs to the health care system, severe side effects, and psychological impact on patients. The liver is a unique anatomical and immunological site. Liver allografts are spontaneously accepted across major histocompatibility complex barriers in all strain mouse combinations without the requirement for immunosuppressive therapy. In clinical practice, spontaneous liver tolerance also occurs in almost 20% of stable human liver allograft recipients intentionally weaned off all immunosuppressive agents.
Recent advances in technology and understanding of the hepatic immune system led to an early attempt to restore transplantation tolerance with cellular therapy. Regulatory T cells have been applied safely in solid organ transplantations aiming to reduce and eventually withdraw immunosuppression. These require understanding both the donor and recipient innate and adaptive immune profiles and their biology and intrahepatic microenvironment.
Although extensive efforts have been made to delineate the cellular and molecular basis of liver tolerance. The mechanisms underlying this tolerance still remain largely unclear. Immunological understanding of spontaneous liver allografts tolerance may contribute to the provision of potential ways to achieve clinical operational tolerance after organ transplantation.
Thus, the aim of this Research Topic is to shed light on the processes leading to immune tolerance following liver transplantation without the use of immunosuppressive agents. We welcome authors to submit Original Research and Review articles focusing on, but not limited to, the following subtopics:
1. Liver transplant immunology and alloimmunity
2. Current immunosuppressive therapies and their impact on the immune system
3. Liver graft rejection, including hyperacute, acute and chronic rejections
4. New pathways to induce hepatic tolerance following transplantation including cytokine and regulatory T cell therapies
5. Immune response to cadaveric, and live donors, including DBD and DCD grafts
6. Organ restoration with normothermic machine perfusion and immune reaction
7. Post-transplant infections and recurrence of disease and host immune response
8. De novo immune response in the graft
9. Re-transplantation and immune tolerance
10. Operational tolerance following transplantation
Recent advances in technology and understanding of the hepatic immune system led to an early attempt to restore transplantation tolerance with cellular therapy. Regulatory T cells have been applied safely in solid organ transplantations aiming to reduce and eventually withdraw immunosuppression. These require understanding both the donor and recipient innate and adaptive immune profiles and their biology and intrahepatic microenvironment.
Although extensive efforts have been made to delineate the cellular and molecular basis of liver tolerance. The mechanisms underlying this tolerance still remain largely unclear. Immunological understanding of spontaneous liver allografts tolerance may contribute to the provision of potential ways to achieve clinical operational tolerance after organ transplantation.
Thus, the aim of this Research Topic is to shed light on the processes leading to immune tolerance following liver transplantation without the use of immunosuppressive agents. We welcome authors to submit Original Research and Review articles focusing on, but not limited to, the following subtopics:
1. Liver transplant immunology and alloimmunity
2. Current immunosuppressive therapies and their impact on the immune system
3. Liver graft rejection, including hyperacute, acute and chronic rejections
4. New pathways to induce hepatic tolerance following transplantation including cytokine and regulatory T cell therapies
5. Immune response to cadaveric, and live donors, including DBD and DCD grafts
6. Organ restoration with normothermic machine perfusion and immune reaction
7. Post-transplant infections and recurrence of disease and host immune response
8. De novo immune response in the graft
9. Re-transplantation and immune tolerance
10. Operational tolerance following transplantation
Keywords: liver transplantation, recurrence, rejection, regulatory cells, tolerance
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
