Articles

Urinary-Cell mRNA Profile and Acute Cellular Rejection in Kidney Allografts

Suthanthiran, Manikkam; Schwartz, Joseph E.; Ding, Ruchuang; Abecassis, Michael; Dadhania, Darshana; Samstein, Benjamin; Knechtle, Stuart J.; Friedewald, John; Becker, Yolanda T.; Sharma, Vijay K.; Williams, Nikki M.; Chang, Christina S.; Hoang, Christine; Muthukumar, Thangamani; August, Phyllis; Keslar, Karen S.; Fairchild, Robert L.; Hricik, Donald E.; Heeger, Peter S.; Han, Leiya; Liu, Jun; Riggs, Michael; Ikle, David N.; Bridges, Nancy D.; Shaked, Abraham; Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation 04 (CTOT-04) Study Investigators

Background—The standard test for the diagnosis of acute rejection in kidney transplants is the renal biopsy. Noninvasive tests would be preferable.

Methods—We prospectively collected 4300 urine specimens from 485 kidney-graft recipients from day 3 through month 12 after transplantation. Messenger RNA (mRNA) levels were measured in urinary cells and correlated with allograft-rejection status with the use of logistic regression.

Results—A three-gene signature of 18S ribosomal (rRNA)–normalized measures of CD3ε mRNA and interferon-inducible protein 10 (IP-10) mRNA, and 18S rRNA discriminated between biopsy specimens showing acute cellular rejection and those not showing rejection (area under the curve [AUC], 0.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.78 to 0.91; P<0.001 by receiver-operatingcharacteristic curve analysis). The cross-validation estimate of the AUC was 0.83 by bootstrap resampling, and the Hosmer–Lemeshow test indicated good fit (P = 0.77). In an externalvalidation data set, the AUC was 0.74 (95% CI, 0.61 to 0.86; P<0.001) and did not differ significantly from the AUC in our primary data set (P = 0.13). The signature distinguished acute cellular rejection from acute antibody-mediated rejection and borderline rejection (AUC, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.68 to 0.89; P<0.001). It also distinguished patients who received anti–interleukin-2 receptor antibodies from those who received T-cell–depleting antibodies (P<0.001) and was diagnostic of acute cellular rejection in both groups. Urinary tract infection did not affect the signature (P = 0.69). The average trajectory of the signature in repeated urine samples remained below the diagnostic threshold for acute cellular rejection in the group of patients with no rejection, but in the group with rejection, there was a sharp rise during the weeks before the biopsy showing rejection (P<0.001).

Conclusions—A molecular signature of CD3ε mRNA, IP-10 mRNA, and 18S rRNA levels in urinary cells appears to be diagnostic and prognostic of acute cellular rejection in kidney allografts.

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Also Published In

Title
New England Journal of Medicine
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1215555

More About This Work

Academic Units
Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health
Surgery
Publisher
Massachusetts Medical Society
Published Here
September 16, 2016