A pig kidney was transplanted into a human in the United States

Among the avenues followed to answer the challenge of lack of clauses, K “Xenograft” (transplantation of an organ from another species) has just reached a historic milestone. For the first time, a pig kidney has been successfully transplanted into a human patient with end-stage renal failure. The latter should soon be able to return home, announced Thursday by the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where the feat was achieved.

At age 62, Rick Slayman was suffering from chronic kidney problems due to his type 2 diabetes and hypertension. First kidney transplant “Classic” That allowed him to go without dialysis for 5 years, but graft deterioration put him back on the long list of candidates for a new transplant in May 2023. It was then that his nephrologist offered him an alternative: accept a pig kidney genetically modified to be tolerated by the human body. Such organs were transplanted, and worked in humans… in a state of brain death.

69 genetic modification

The operation, conducted by the team of doctors Leonardo Riela, Tatsuo Kawai and Nahel Elias, lasted four hours. The graft used comes from pigs bred by Egenesis, a specialist company in Cambridge, which has been collaborating with MGH on the subject for many years. Their joint research, conducted on monkeys transplanted with pig kidneys, was presented in October Nature. Pigs raised by Egenesis are genetically modified using the CRISPR Cas-9 genome editing technique to release a pig-specific retrovirus organ that can infect humans, as well as to remove some pig genes and add human genes. No less than 69 changes are necessary for the organ to be tolerated by the human organism.

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“For me, it was both an opportunity (to get better), but also a way to give hope to thousands of people waiting for a transplant to survive.”, the patient said in an MGH press release. The medical team, for their part, welcomed “Courage” of this pioneer. “The success of this transplant is the culmination of the efforts of thousands of scientists and doctors over several decades.”Tatsuo Kawai, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, added.

“It’s extraordinary, spectacular”Professor Christian Combe, nephrologist and president of the Kidney Foundation, congratulates him as he recalls that he “We must be careful because at this stage we only have five days behind”. “Their work shows that they have maximized immunological compatibility between humans and pigs, giving themselves many opportunities to do that,” It emphasizes.

The first human animal organ transplant took place in January 2022 in Maryland, United States. David Bennett received a genetically modified heart from a pig that functioned properly for seven weeks before deteriorating, causing the patient’s death.

“The pig has many advantages: it is a relatively easy animal to raise, grows quickly and has organs the same size as a human adult at about six months, Explains Professor Sébastien Duranci of the Lille University Hospital, which is responsible for the transplant activity in the Lille region, who did not participate in the research. Moreover, they have physical and anatomical similarities with humans”. “Kidneys have an important role in regulating the body’s water and salt composition. However, there is an interesting correlation between pig hormonal receptors and human hormones involved in this mechanism. Professor Combe adds.

In France, 3,377 kidney transplants were performed in 2022, but 9,800 patients were still on an active waiting list as of 1^er January 2023.