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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Transplant Rev (Orlando). 2014 May 27;28(3):145–154. doi: 10.1016/j.trre.2014.05.003

Figure 2. Conceptualization of the kidney allograft as an in-vivo flow cytometer.

Figure 2

Interstitial inflammation and tubilitis are the histological hallmarks of acute cellular rejection in the kidney allograft (left panel). Since acute cellular rejection involves the exit of T-lymphocytes from the intravascular space and gain of entry into the tubular space, the kidney allograft could be considered to function as an in-vivo flow cytometer (middle panel) facilitating the entry of graft destructive/protective T-lymphocytes, other immune cells and graft parenchymal cells into the urinary space and become available for gene expression profiling.