Cutting down wait lists for organ transplants by pre-treatment of donor organs

器官移植的等待名单往往非常长，因为需要确定可用的器官或与需要移植的患者非常匹配的器官。这一配对过程涉及识别具有与患者自身组织上的抗原相似的外部标记的器官。在必须匹配的抗原中，有一些可以区分A型、B型和O型血。红血球上的相关抗原实际上是非常简单的糖分子。A型、B型和O型红细胞都有相同的糖亚结构，但A型和B型红血球的不同之处在于每个红血球都连接了一个糖外。申请者最近开发了一种用酶去除额外糖分的方法，这样他们就可以将A或B红细胞转化为O型红细胞。他们目前正在测试如此开发的Universal O型血的安全性。在这项提案中，将测试这些相同的酶从捐赠的人体器官表面去除这些抗原的能力，并将彻底测试修改后的器官的安全性和用途。如果成功，这将允许A型和B型血型个体的器官转化为O型器官。这将提高移植患者获得匹配器官的几率，从而提高患者存活率。

Waitlists for organ transplants are often extremely lengthy due to the need to identify availabledonor organs that are a good match to the patient requiring the transplant. This process ofmatching involves identifying organs that have similar external markers known as antigens,to those on the patients own tissues. Amongst the antigens that have to be matched arethose that distinguish A, B and O type blood from each other. The relevant antigens on redblood cells are in fact very simple sugar molecules. A,B and O red blood cells all share acommon substructure of sugars, but A and B red blood cells differ in each having one extrasugar attached. The applicants have recently developed a way of removing that additionalsugar with enzymes so that they can convert A or B red blood cells to O type red blood cells.They are currently testing the safety of the Universal O type blood so developed. In thisproposal the ability of these same enzymes to remove these antigens from the surface ofdonated human organs will be tested and the safety and use of the modified organs will bethoroughly tested. If successful this would allow the organs from A and B blood typeindividuals to be converted into O type organs. This would improve the odds of transplantpatients obtaining matching organs, which would increase survival patient rates.