For many patients who are in a long queue for a donor kidney transplant, this invention of British scientists can be extremely useful. For the first time, they were able to successfully change the blood types of three donor human kidneys from more common to rarer.
Blood type is one of the main factors in whether a donor organ is suitable for you or not. Sometimes a person does not receive one or another organ that suits him according to all criteria, precisely because its owner has a different blood type. And now scientists from the UK have announced that they have successfully changed the blood type of three donor human kidneys at once from a more common to a rarer one. True, so far this technology has been implemented only in the laboratory, but if it successfully passes into clinical practice, it will help save thousands of lives.
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It is the kidneys that are most often transplanted in surgery, and in the territory of Foggy Albion, the waiting time for a donor kidney, on average, stretches for three years. These operations are needed by victims of kidney failure who are on hemodialysis. And a long waiting period threatens them with even more serious consequences. If donor kidneys are taken from deceased people, they must match the blood group of the donors. Patients with rarer blood types inevitably wait much longer for surgery.
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A British team of scientists made their breakthrough when they removed B antigens from the lining of blood vessels in donor kidneys using an enzyme from the bacterium Bacteroides fragilis, which commonly found in the human intestine. Like bacterial scissors were used. The laboratory pumped blood with this bacterial enzyme through the kidneys using an artificial pump that mimics the work of the heart. Blood vessel samples were collected during and after therapy. Then they were examined under a microscope and compared with kidney samples that had not undergone therapy. A complete loss of blood group antigens in the treated renal tissue was revealed, that is, the replacement of the blood group was successfully carried out. (READ MORE)