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Adequate immunosuppression remains a major obstacle to successful xenotransplantation, with early xenograft rejection appearing to be mediated by humoral factors. Total-lymphoid irradiation (TLI) and 15-deoxyspergualin (DOSP) have been shown to be effective immunosuppressive agents in allografs. In this study, TLI alone and in combination with DOSP and cyclosporine were evaluated in the hamster-to-rat heterotopic cardiac xenograft model. The animals were divided into four groups: group 1--control (n = 9); group 2--TLI alone, administered pretransplant at 125 cGy/day, four days per week, for three weeks (n = 12); group 3--TLI plus CsA at 10 mg/kg/day (n = 17); and group 4--TLI plus DOSP at 2.5 mg/kg/day (n = 10). Tissue sections were taken from rejected xenografts in all treatment groups for histological examination. Complement-dependent cytotoxicity assays were performed on the control group and also the TLI-DOSP group. The control animals were found to have a mean graft survival of 3.2 +/- 0.4 days. TLI alone (5.8 +/- 0.7 days) did not significantly improve graft survival in comparison with the control group. Combination of TLI with DOSP (26.3 +/- 5.9 days) results in significantly improved survival (P less than 0.05) in comparison with the control, TLI alone, and combination of TLI and CsA (13.6 +/- 8.6 days). Complement-dependent cytotoxicity assays revealed that control groups have low rat antihamster lymphocytotoxic antibody titer (1/1-1/10) prior to xenografting, and that these antibody titers show a precipitous rise to a level of 1/640-1/1280 by day 3, the time at which rejection occurred. This correlates with the histological findings of the rejected hearts showing a severe humoral type of rejection and no evidence of cellular rejection. In contrast, animals in the TLI-DOSP group had markedly lowered rat antihamster lymphocytotoxic antibody titers (1/20-1/40) on day 3, and these titers only increased to 1/160 at time of rejection. This correlates with the histological findings of a lesser degree of humoral rejection in the TLI-DOSP group. Combination therapy with TLI and DOSP results in a marked increase of survival in xenografts in this model not seen with any other drug combination studied in over 500 xenografts in our laboratory. This study indicates that TLI combined with DOSP results in prolonged suppression of the antixenograft antibody response. This combination of agents appears to have the potential to prevent early xenograft rejection.