Porcine endogenous retroviruses in xenotransplantation.
Joachim DennerPublished in: Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation : official publication of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association - European Renal Association (2024)
Xenotransplantation using pig cells, tissues or organs is under development to alleviate the shortage of human donor organs. Meanwhile remarkably long survival times of pig organs in non-human primates were reported as well as the functionality of pig kidneys and hearts in brain-dead humans. Most importantly, two transplantations of pig hearts in patients were performed with survival times of the patients of 8 and 6 weeks. Xenotransplantation may be associated with the transmission of porcine microorganisms including viruses to the recipient. Porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) are integrated in the genome of all pigs and cannot be eliminated like other viruses can. PERVs are able to infect certain human cells and pose therefore a risk for xenotransplantation. It is well known that retroviruses are able to induce tumors and immunodeficiencies. However, until now, PERV was not transmitted in all infection experiments using small animals and non-human primates, in all preclinical xenotransplantation trials in non-human primates and in all clinical trials in humans. In addition, several strategies including antiretrovirals, PERV-specific siRNA, vaccines and genome editing using CRISPR/Cas have been developed to prevent PERV transmission.
Keyphrases
- crispr cas
- endothelial cells
- genome editing
- end stage renal disease
- clinical trial
- induced pluripotent stem cells
- ejection fraction
- newly diagnosed
- pluripotent stem cells
- chronic kidney disease
- gene expression
- prognostic factors
- randomized controlled trial
- induced apoptosis
- multiple sclerosis
- brain injury
- bone marrow
- genome wide
- endoplasmic reticulum stress
- white matter
- study protocol
- mesenchymal stem cells
- cerebral ischemia