Comparative analysis of Luminex-based donor-specific antibody mean fluorescence intensity values with complement-dependent cytotoxicity & flow crossmatch results in live donor renal transplantation

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Antibodies specific to donor human leucocyte antigen (HLA) play a critical role in graft rejection and graft loss. In recent years, techniques for their detection have evolved significantly providing an ever-increasing degree of sensitivity and specificity, from the conventional cell-based assays to the advanced solid-phase system based on the Luminex platform. Consensus is still evolving on the routine employment of all these methods, either stand alone or in combination. The objective of this study was to explore the near-accurate mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) cut-off values detected on Luminex platform predicting the strength of cell-based crossmatch results. METHODS: Serum samples from 116 primary renal transplant recipients awaiting transplantation were tested for the presence of antidonor antibodies by the complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and flow crossmatch (FCXM) methods with their corresponding donors as well as for HLA-donor-specific antibodies (DSA) detection using a sensitive single antigen bead (SAB) assay. RESULTS: None of the patients having HLA Class I DSA with MFI values <1000 showed positivity for T-cell FCXM or CDC crossmatch, while in the group having MFI values between 1000 and 3000, 54 per cent showed positivity for the FCXM but none by the CDC method. However, in the group having MFI values >3000, 95 per cent of cases were positive for FCXM. Further, those groups with MFI values between 3000 and 5000, only 36 per cent were positive for CDC crossmatch, while 90 per cent showed positivity in the group with MFI >7000. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: A cut-off MFI value of 3000 for Luminex SAB-based assay was found to significantly correlate with the FCXM positivity while a MFI value of 7000 and above predicted a positive CDC crossmatch. MFI cut-off value obtained as a surrogate marker for CDC and FCXM tests will help in resolving the limitations of different cell-based techniques.