Immune monitoring in nonhuman primate transplantation. A review of 'Non-human primate transplantation tolerance models: Immune Assays and Analysis Workshop' held in Atlanta, Ga, September 2005

In September 2005, an National Institutes of Health-sponsored workshop was held in Atlanta, Georgia, which focused on non-human primate transplantation tolerance models. The aim of this workshop was an open exchange of techniques and assays applicable to this important translational transplantation model. A major focus of the workshop was the development of assays that are capable of monitoring immune status after transplant. These include mixed lymphocyte reaction assays (using both tritiated thymidine and carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester to assess T-cell proliferation), large-scale production of dendritic cells for immune analysis, the molecular analysis of graft rejection and acceptance using single-plex RNA analysis, and multiplex flow cytometric and gene array analysis, as well as sophisticated multi-color flow cytometric profiling of immunocyte subpopulations and cytokine expression patterns. This review will summarize the progress presented at the workshop toward the application of these techniques to immune analysis in non-human primates and discuss their relative contributions to ongoing evaluation of immune tolerance after transplantation.