A trick from cancer cells helps rats accept transplanted limbs

Crucially, the technique doesn’t rely on medications that suppress the immune system

Microparticles that release a signaling protein normally secreted from cancer cells to hide from the immune system helped white Lewis rats that received donor legs from brown Norway rats tolerate the transplanted limbs.

UPMC

To help rats adopt transplanted limbs as their own, researchers have harnessed a ruse that cancer cells use to hide from the immune system — effectively reprograming the animals’ defenses to ignore foreign tissue.