Wiley Periodicals Inc. C © 2009 The Authors Journal compilation C © 2009 The American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons doi: 10.1111/j.1600-6143.2008.02512.x Renal Allografts with IF/TA Display Distinct Expression

Chronic renal allograft injury is often reflected by in-terstitial fibrosis (IF) and tubular atrophy (TA) with-out evidence of specific etiology. In most instances, IF/TA remains an irreversible disorder, representing a major cause of long-term allograft loss. As mem-bers of the protease family metzincins and function-ally related genes are involved in fibrotic and scle-rotic processes of the extracellular matrix (ECM), we hypothesized their deregulation in IF/TA. Gene ex-pression and protein level analyses using allograft biopsies with and without Banff‘05 classified IF/TA illustrated their deregulation. Expression profiles of these genes differentiated IF/TA from Banff‘05 clas-sified Normal biopsies in three independent microar-ray studies and demonstrated histological progressio