Liver Transplant Tolerance and Its Application to the Clinic: Can We Exploit the High Dose Effect?

Figure 1

High antigen dose leads to tolerance by exhausting the finite T cell clone size. Transplantation of a smaller organ (e.g., a heart) results in rejection due to a high density of alloreactive T cells and sufficient T cell help. Grafting a large tissue mass or organ (e.g., a liver) leads to a low density of alloreactive T cells and T cell help, resulting in exhaustion of T cells and subsequent tolerance.