Across China: China completes xenogeneic liver, kidney combined transplantation clinical trial

KUNMING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- China has completed a clinical trial of a combined xenogeneic transplantation of a liver and a kidney in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The clinical trial was jointly conducted by the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital and Yunnan Agricultural University. They successfully transplanted a kidney and liver from a pig into a brain-dead human. Eight of the pig's genes were edited prior to the transplantation.

Urine flowed and bile was secreted after the kidney and liver were transplanted, while there was open blood flow to both. In addition, the transplanted liver and kidney were red and blood flow was smooth, according to the hospitals involved.

The operation, lasting more than eight hours and completed on March 19, is the first pig-human liver and kidney combined xenogeneic transplantation to date. It successfully confirmed the feasibility of using gene-edited pig organs in a combined transplantation to effectively replace human organs, which has laid an important foundation for the further development of xenogeneic transplantation.

The recipient was a 52-year-old male who had exhibited spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage combined with cerebral hernia. He was judged to be brain dead through a strict determination procedure, and his family agreed to the scientific research of xenogeneic transplantation without receiving compensation.

The pig in the clinical trial weighed 69 kg and its relevant organs were subjected to gene editing. Three complementary regulatory proteins transferred from a human proved to effectively alleviate acute rejection caused by activation of the human system, while transferred regulatory protein that inhibits coagulation effectively avoided rejection caused by human coagulation disorders.

"Both the liver and kidneys were functional after transplantation," said Zeng Zhong, director of the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University.

Organ transplantation is the most effective means to treat patients with end-stage organ failure, but a serious shortage of donor organs remains a bottleneck in the development of organ transplantation therapy. Therefore, xenogeneic transplantation is seen as having significant potential for solving this problem in the future.

Data obtained during the xenogeneic liver and kidney transplantation procedure in Kunming generally confirmed the unique interaction between xenoedited organs and the human immune system and the specificity of different xenogeneic organs in terms of gene expression patterns and immune response differences in the human environment, said Dong Jiahong, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

At present, the procedure of multi-gene editing of pigs for serving as xenogenic organ donors is being widely studied and verified.