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To assess the development, stability, and clinical relevance of donor-type microchimerism, skin and blood were analyzed in heart (n = 53) and liver (n = 18) transplant recipients by nested polymerase chain reaction. Microchimerism was detectable in 40 (75%) and 13 (72%) patients after heart and liver transplantation, respectively. In heart transplantation, chimerism-positive patients showed a lower frequency of acute rejection as compared with negative patients, although this was only of borderline statistical significance. Repeated intraindividual analyses demonstrated variable patterns of microchimerism over time, but changes did not correlate to the clinical state. In liver transplantation, chimeric state showed no clear correlation with the patients' immunological situation. Our results demonstrate that peripheral microchimerism frequently develops after different types of organ transplantation and represents a dynamic process but without diagnostic value to predict the immunological risk for individual patients.

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