Body donors
Doctors transplanted pig GM hearts to two patients with brain death
Slava Gomenyuk, N+1
American doctors transplanted genetically modified pig hearts to two patients - this is the second and third such cases in history. According to the news portal of the New York University Medical Center, the hearts functioned for at least 72 hours in two patients with diagnosed brain death who are on artificial lung ventilation.
Doctors at the University of Maryland announced the first-ever case of transplantation of a genetically modified pig heart to a human in January 2022. The recipient was a 57-year-old American with life-threatening arrhythmia. Then the pig's genome was modified in such a way that the transplant would not attack foreign tissues, and the heart tissue itself would not grow excessively. However, almost two months later, on March 8, the patient died. Later, doctors said that the most likely cause that led to a malfunction of the heart was porcine cytomegalovirus.
Director of the Transplantation Institute of New York University Robert Montgomery at a press conference dedicated to two new transplants of genetically modified pig hearts to humans, said that doctors performed one operation on June 16, and the second on July 6. Both patients were on artificial lung ventilation with a diagnosis of "Brain death". During their lifetime, they donated their bodies for research because their own tissues and organs were not suitable for transplantation.
Both pig hearts functioned for at least 72 hours inside the body. In total, ten genetic modifications were made to the pig genome: four of them concerned pig genes and were aimed at reducing the risk of transplant rejection and abnormal growth of heart tissue. The remaining six modifications were human transgenes, which led to a better affinity of human and pig tissues. The company "Revivicor" was engaged in the cultivation of GM pigs - the same one that raised the pig for the first transplant.
Doctors found no signs of early rejection in any of the organs. The hearts functioned normally with standard post-transplant therapy. With additional and more detailed studies, porcine cytomegalovirus and endogenous pig retrovirus were not found in the hearts. According to Montgomery, doctors have implemented more sensitive screening methods to detect the lowest concentrations of porcine cytomegalovirus in donor pigs.
Scientists believe that transplants of genetically modified xenotransplatates may become commonplace over the next ten years.
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