Xenotransplantation: past, present and future

Organ transplantation suffers today from the discrepancy between demand and organ/cell donation. All possible ways to increase the number of donors are already expanded but despite these efforts, the average of donors remains limited. Therefore, in order to help patients who would not even be considered for transplantation, xenotransplantation and regenerative medicine might represent a great hope in the near future. Regarding xenotransplantation, remarkable progress has been made in this last decade. In fact, during the last 6 years, important experimental data have been obtained with pig xenoislet. This is especially true for pig islet cells that could be used in humans without immunosuppression if encapsulated. As far as solid-organ xenotransplantation is concerned, to date, genetic modifications in donors have not yet provided the necessary survival to envisage clinical use, but the existence of transgenic pigs on a GalT-KO background should provide significant improvements in the near future