A Common Peripheral Blood Gene-Set for Diagnosis and Prediction of Operational Tolerance in Pediatric and Adult Liver Transplantation. Homo sapiens

The ability to identify a robust means for both pediatric and adult liver transplant recipients for minimization and weaning of immunosuppression is greatly needed. We analyzed 298 samples from pediatric (n=83) and published adult (n=57) liver transplant recipients, and the public available cell or tissue specific samples (n=158). Biomarkers were first identified from the integration of the cross-platform analysis of Stanford pediatric and adult studies and validated in independent samples from UCLA on microarray. Furthermore, Q-PCR was performed for targets validation and delivers a robust diagnostic assay of predicting potential liver tolerance after liver transplantation. Thirteen unique genes were identified (FDR90% prediction probability. Specific peripheral transcriptional programs can be identified in operational tolerance in pediatric recipients of liver allografts, distinct from those previously identified in adult operationally tolerant liver recipients, and may provide a means to non-invasively monitor patients in a serial manner for immunosuppression minimization. These genes are highly expressed in specific peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets, and their coordinated may support the maintenance of operational tolerance in children, following liver transplantation. Overall design: Two centers data was included, which are 41 samples from Stanford as the training set and 44 samples from UCLA as the test set. 26 samples from Stanford and 15 samples from UCLA were used in microarray Agilent whole human genome microarray