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CD4+ T-helper cells play an important role in alloimmune reactions following transplantation by stimulating humoral as well as cellular responses, which might lead to failure of the allograft. CD4+ memory T-helper cells from a previous immunizing event can potentially be reactivated by exposure to HLA mismatches that share T-cell epitopes with the initial immunizing HLA. Consequently, reactivity of CD4+ memory T-helper cells toward T-cell epitopes that are shared between immunizing HLA and donor HLA could increase the risk of alloimmunity following transplantation, thus affecting transplant outcome. In this study, the amount of T-cell epitopes shared between immunizing and donor HLA was used as a surrogate marker to evaluate the effect of donor-reactive CD4+ memory T-helper cells on the 10-year risk of death-censored kidney graft failure in 190 donor/recipient combinations using the PIRCHE-II algorithm. The T-cell epitopes of the initial theoretical immunizing HLA and the donor HLA were estimated and the number of shared PIRCHE-II epitopes was calculated. We show that the natural logarithm-transformed PIRCHE-II overlap score, or Shared T-cell EPitopes (STEP) score, significantly associates with the 10-year risk of death-censored kidney graft failure, suggesting that the presence of pre-transplant donor-reactive CD4+ memory T-helper cells might be a strong indicator for the risk of graft failure following kidney transplantation.

The best treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease is kidney transplantation. Although graft survival rates have improved in the last decades, patients still may lose their grafts partly due to the detrimental effects of donor-specific antibodies (DSA) against human leukocyte antigens (HLA) and to a lesser extent also by antibodies directed against non-HLA antigens expressed on the donor endothelium. Assays to detect anti-HLA antibodies are already in use for many years and have been proven useful for transplant risk stratification. Currently, there is a need for assays to additionally detect multiple non-HLA antibodies simultaneously in order to study their clinical relevance in solid organ transplantation. This study describes the development, technical details and validation of a high-throughput multiplex assay for the detection of antibodies against 14 non-HLA antigens coupled directly to MagPlex microspheres or indirectly via a HaloTag. The non-HLA antigens have been selected based on a literature search in patients with kidney disease or following transplantation. Due to the flexibility of the assay, this approach can be used to include alternative antigens and can also be used for screening of other organ transplant recipients, such as heart and lung.

Individual HLA mismatches may differentially impact graft survival after kidney transplantation. Therefore, there is a need for a reliable tool to define permissible HLA mismatches in kidney transplantation. We previously demonstrated that donor-derived Predicted Indirectly ReCognizable HLA Epitopes presented by recipient HLA class II (PIRCHE-II) play a role in de novo donor-specific HLA antibodies formation after kidney transplantation. In the present Dutch multi-center study, we evaluated the possible association between PIRCHE-II and kidney graft failure in 2,918 donor–recipient couples that were transplanted between 1995 and 2005. For these donors–recipients couples, PIRCHE-II numbers were related to graft survival in univariate and multivariable analyses. Adjusted for confounders, the natural logarithm of PIRCHE-II was associated with a higher risk for graft failure [hazard ratio (HR): 1.13, 95% CI: 1.04–1.23, p = 0.003]. When analyzing a subgroup of patients who had their first transplantation, the HR of graft failure for ln(PIRCHE-II) was higher compared with the overall cohort (HR: 1.22, 95% CI: 1.10–1.34, p