Blood gene expression at 3 months post-transplantation predicts 1-year histologic features in renal transplantation

Histological analysis of biopsy is the gold standard to assess renal allograft status. Furthermore, 1-year protocol biopsy is often performed to evaluated graft outcome. However, since biopsy cannot be performed in a time serial basis, we decided to investigate whether blood can be a good compartment to predict allograft outcome. Gene expression microarrays and a large phenotype have been performed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 79 renal transplanted patients taken 3 months after transplantation. We evaluated the association of biological parameters with 4 histological groups defined on renal biopsy taken at 1-year post-transplantation: patients which display normal biopsy (n=45), patients with signs of tubular atrophy and interstitial fibrosis (IFTA) (n=14), with IFTA with inflammation (i-IFTA) (n=14) and patients with alloimmune lesions (n=6)

79