Abstract
Early-stage organ transplant rejection can be difficult to detect. Percutaneous biopsies occur infrequently and are risky, and measuring biomarker levels in blood can lead to false-negative and -positive outcomes. We developed an implantable bioelectronic system capable of continuous, real-time, long-term monitoring of the local temperature and thermal conductivity of a kidney for detecting inflammatory processes associated with graft rejection, as demonstrated in rat models. The system detects ultradian rhythms, disruption of the circadian cycle, and/or a rise in kidney temperature. These provide warning signs of acute kidney transplant rejection that precede changes in blood serum creatinine/urea nitrogen by 2 to 3 weeks and approximately 3 days for cases of discontinued and absent administration of immunosuppressive therapy, respectively.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1105-1112 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Science |
| Volume | 381 |
| Issue number | 6662 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 8 2023 |
Funding
This work made use of the NUFAB facility of Northwestern University’s NUANCE Center, which has received support from the SHyNE Resource (NSF ECCS-2025633), the IIN, and Northwestern’s MRSEC program (NSF DMR-1720139). This work made use of the Microsurgery and Preclinical Research Core Facility in the Comprehensive Transplant Center at the Feinberg School of Medicine. The authors thank J. Zhu, S. Coughlin, and J. Winograd for preliminary efforts in microfabrication. The authors thank A. Spann (Center for Advanced Molecular Imaging, Northwestern University) for 3D reconstruction of and segmentation of the contrast-CT image. The authors thank D. Procissi and N. Bertolino (Small Animal Imaging Facility, Center for Translational Imaging, Northwestern University) for collection of CT images. We thank M. Arceta, J. Hernandez, and S. Popovics for assistance with animal husbandry and care (Center for Comprehensive Medicine, Northwestern University). The authors acknowledge the Northwestern Mouse Histology and Phenotyping Laboratory for preparation of histological samples and the Northwestern Pathology Core Facility for assistance with scanning of histology slides. Figures 2A, 2B, and 4A were created using Biorender.com. Illustrations in Fig. 1A were created by J. Sinn-Hanlon, iLearning@VetMed, UIUC. The authors thank J. Ciatti for the photograph in Fig. 1C and for performing surface roughness measurements. Funding: S.R.M. acknowledges support from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF DGE-1842165). M.P. acknowledges support in part by an Alpha Omega Alpha Carolyn L. Kuckein Student Research Fellowship.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General