A comparative analysis of
inflammation between solid organs following donor
brain death (BD) is still lacking and the detailed influence of BD accelerating ischaemia-
reperfusion injury (IRI) post-
transplantation remains to be addressed. Applying a murine model of BD, we demonstrated that 4 h after BD organs were characterized by distinct inflammatory expression patterns. For instance,
lipocalin 2 (LCN2), a marker of
acute kidney injury, was selectively induced in BD livers but not in kidneys. BD further resulted in significantly reduced frequencies of CD3(+) CD4(+) , CD3(+) CD8(+) T cells and NKp46(+) NK cells in the liver, whereas BD kidneys and hearts were characterized by significantly lower frequencies of conventional dendritic cells (
cDCs). Syngeneic models of kidney (KTx) and
heart transplantation (HTx) illustrated stronger gene expression in engrafted BD hearts only, but 20 h post-
transplantation both organs displayed comparable intragraft lymphocyte frequencies, except for NK cells and graft function. Moreover, the
complement factor C3d deposit detected in small vessels and capillaries in cardiac syngrafts did not significantly differ between BD and
sham-transplanted groups. Finally, no further influence of donor BD on graft survival was detected in an allogeneic
heart transplantation setting (C57BL/6 grafts into BALB/c recipients). We show for the first time that BD organs are characterized by a varying inflammatory profile; however, BD does not accelerate IRI in syngeneic KTx and HTx.