Woburn, Mass. – June 15, 2023 − Aphios today announced that its novel APH-1902 drug formulation reduces transplantation injury and improves kidney transplantation efficiency which will lead to better organ survival and make more organs available to patients on the long kidney transplantation waiting list.
Dr. J. Steven Alexander, Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology and Medicine at LSU Health Shreveport (LSUHSC), working with Dr. April Carpenter Elrod, Assistant Professor of Health and Exercise Physiology at Ursinus College, and Dr. Trevor P. Castor, President and CEO, Aphios Corporation discovered that APH-1902 stabilizes blood vessel cells called ‘endothelial’ cells and stops infiltration by white blood cells.
Ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI) is a form of inflammation whose severity determines short- and long-term graft fates in kidney transplantation. Neutrophils are now recognized as a key cell type mediating early graft injury, which activates further innate immune responses and intensifies acquired immunity and alloimmunity. We first showed that APH-1902 blocked neutrophil transmigration. We then aimed to determine whether these findings could be translated to the field of kidney transplantation. To study the effects of APH-1902 on ischemia-elicited neutrophil transmigration, an in vitro model of hypoxia and normoxia was used with human endothelial cells and neutrophils.
To translate these findings, a porcine renal autotransplantation model with eight hours of reperfusion was used to study neutrophil infiltration in vivo. Graft-specific treatment using APH-1902 (100 nM) was applied during static cold storage. APH-1902 dose-dependently blocked neutrophil activation and transmigration over ischemically challenged endothelial cell monolayers. When applied to porcine renal autografts, APH-1902 reduced neutrophil graft infiltration, attenuated histological and ultrastructural damage, and improved renal function. Our novel findings demonstrate that APH-1902 is a promising pharmacological candidate for graft-specific treatment in kidney transplantation, as it provides protection by blocking neutrophil infiltration and attenuating functional graft injury.
More details on our findings can be found in an article on the Attenuation of Ischemia-Elicited Neutrophil Transmigration and Amelioration of Graft Injury after Kidney Transplantation by Dr. Felix Becker, Department of General, Visceral and Transplant Surgery, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany and collaborators at Aphios and LSUHSC in Cells 2022, 11, 948.https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11060948.
About Aphios Corporation:
Aphios (www.aphios.com) is an emerging growth, green biotechnology company developing enabling technology platforms to improve drug discovery and manufacturing, nanotechnology drug delivery and pathogenic safety. Based on these platforms, Aphios is developing enhanced therapeutics to maintain health, improve quality-of-life and treat chronic diseases including cancers, infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and central and peripheral nervous system disorders in an environmentally sustainable manner.