CD3, Lung Transplantation

Over the last two decades, lung transplantation has evolved as an accepted treatment of end-stage pulmonary failure unresponsive to other therapy, see [1]. However, long-term outcome is still poor – mainly due to chronic allograft rejection with fibrous obliteration of the small airways. The immunological background for this condition is not well understood, but acute rejection is a known risk factor for later development of chronic rejection, see [2]. The study of inflammation during acute rejection episodes might therefore offer new insights into the mechanisms leading to chronic rejection. Regulatory T lymphocytes (Tregs) are a subset of T cells known to suppress a wide range of immune responses, see [3]; they are considered pivotal for the induction of tolerance to donor antigens in different human allografts. Therefore it could be of relevance to study the number of Tregs as a fraction of the total number of T cells in lung biopsies and compare it with the patient’s rejection status and lung function. With immunohistochemistry CD3 positive T cells can be identified, but manual cell counting of these is both difficult and time consuming because of the very large number of cells.
With the APP “CD3, Lung Transplantation” automated and fast quantification of the CD3 positive T cells can be obtained.
The APP automatically identifies the CD3 positive areas on the slide and outputs amongst others the CD3 positive ratio.