A team of researchers at Stanford (Calif.) Medical School are working to predict which kidney transplant patients may be at risk for potentially deadly infections.
The immune-suppressing drugs necessary to protect transplants leave some organ recipients susceptible to cytomegalovirus, a life-threatening infection. The researchers are examining why the immune system can fight off CMV in some patients but not in others.
A healthy immune system typically keeps CMV under control, but transplant patients take drugs that weaken their immune systems so they won't be as likely to reject the donor organs, allowing viruses like CMV to grow.
Since physicians have been unable to predict which patients' immune systems can fight off CMV and which cannot, the researchers plan to look at T cells in two groups of transplant patients (one with CMV disease and one without) to better protect patients at risk.
"T cells are critically important in immune control of viral infection," said researcher Olivia Martinez, PhD, but are not always successful. To determine why they don't always see success, the researchers will analyze T cells in blood samples from one group of transplant recipients in whom the virus is under control, and another group in whom CMV is reactivated.
The team will then sequence the proteins on the outside of T cells and recognize infections to identify combinations found in one group of patients but not the other.
The researchers aim to find patterns in the T cells that relate to the risk of CMV disease or complications from a dormant CMV infection.
Study results will help create better tools to find transplant patients at risk of CMV disease, and "will also be used more broadly for understanding basic characteristics of viral immunity and vaccine design," Dr. Martinez said.