Kidney Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Kidney Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

Detailed kinetics of EBV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells during primary EBV infection in a kidney transplant patient.

Piriou ER, van Dort K, Weel JF, Bemelman FJ, Gamadia LE, van Oers MH, van Baarle D

Department of Clinical Viro-Immunology, Sanquin Research at CLB, and Landsteiner Laboratory, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The etiology of infectious mononucleosis is poorly understood and usually detected many weeks after infection. Here, we present a unique case of primary symptomatic EBV infection after kidney transplantation, in whom we analyzed both EBV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in detail from the moment of infection up to latency. We show that EBV-specific T-cell responses in peripheral blood during primary EBV infection after kidney transplantation peaked early after the appearance of viral load, but well before onset of IM symptoms, suggesting that IM in this case is not caused by high numbers of CD8+ T cells per se but may be caused by lack of homing to lymph nodes or tonsils.

Published 10 March 2006 in Clin Immunol, 119(1): 16-20.
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