The Tissue Typing Laboratory performs a variety of histocompatibility tests on solid organ transplant candidates and prospective donors. Post-transplant monitoring of the immune response against donors is also offered.
The laboratory also does high-resolution typing of hematologic stem cell candidates with related and unrelated donors to determine the most appropriate donor. Recipients of stem cell transplants are also monitored for percent of donor engraftment using a chimerism assay based on DNA genotyping of both donor(s) and recipient at 21 "CODIS" genetic loci which exhibit a high degree of variation in the population.
The laboratory serves as a reference resource for 12 solid organ transplant programs in the 6 New England states, under a contract with the New England Organ Bank, and provides 24-hour, 7-day service to allow selection of appropriate recipients from the large number of candidates awaiting a solid organ transplant.
The laboratory also performs testing for HLA variants associated with specific diseases and susceptibility to drug side effects.
Specific services include:
- HLA-A, B, C, DR, DQ low resolution typing
- HLA-A, B, C, DR, DQ high resolution typing
- HLA allele testing for disease or drug side effect susceptibility
- ABO Blood Group typing
- Screening of patient serum for anti-HLA antibody
- Anti-HLA antibody specificity using solid phase multiplex assay.
- T and B cell cytotoxic crossmatching
- T and B cell flow cytometric crossmatching
- Donor and Recipient CODIS loci Genotyping for Chimerism Determination
- Quantitative Chimerism Determination for Stem Cell Recipients.
- Post-Transplant Immunological Monitoring
