Objective:To explore the clinical characteristics and outcomes of pediatric kidney transplantations at a single center and discuss the related clinical issues.Methods:From January 1990 to October 2019, clinical data were analyzed retrospectively for 244 pediatric renal transplants. The youngest recipient was aged 1.8 years and the median age of pediatric recipients was 12.2 years. The major disease was primary or hereditary glomerulonephritis ( n=160, 69.0%), congenital anomalies of kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT), cystic renopathy and other hereditary nephropathies ( n=55, 23.7%). The donor sources included traditional deceased donor ( n=42, 17.2%), living-related donor ( n=19, 7.8%) and organ donation ( n=183, 75.0%). The median age of donors was 2 years (0-51) and the median weight 12.0(2.7-72.0) kg. From January 2013 to October 2019, 170 cases), the major induction immunosuppression regimen was anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) ( n=110, 64.7%) or basiliximab ( n=58, 34.1%). The maintenance regimen was tacrolimus + mycophenolic acid (MPA) + glucocorticosteroids. Finally the outcomes and the complications were analyzed. Results:The survival rates of 244 kidney allograft recipients were 98.1%, 94.5% and 93.4% and the graft survival rates 92.6%, 84.2% and 82.0% at 1/3/5 years respectively. Ten recipients died of accident ( n=2, 20.0%), pneumonia after transplantation ( n=2, 20.0%) and intracranial hemorrhage ( n=2, 20.0%). Thirty-three recipients lost their allografts mainly due to intravascular thrombosis in graft ( n=5, 14.3%), acute rejection ( n=5, 14.3%) and death ( n=9, 25.7%). Besides, among 109 deceased donor allograft recipients, the postoperative outcomes were delayed graft function recovery (DGF) ( n=27, 24.8%), arterial thrombosis ( n=6, 5.5%), venous thrombosis ( n=1, 0.9%), graft perirenal hematoma ( n=6, 5.5%), raft artery stenosis ( n=10, 9.2%) and graft ureteral fistula ( n=1, 0.9%). The incidence of acute rejection was 17.5% and 23.2% at 1/3 year respectively. The recurrent rate of primary disease was 6.9%, including primary FSGS ( n=3, 42.9%) and IgA nephropathy ( n=2, 28.6%). At 1/3 year post-operation, the incidence of pulmonary infection was 16.9% and 22.4% and the incidence of urinary tract infection 26.9% and 31.7%. Excluding recipients with graft failure, the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) at 1/2/3 year postoperatively was (80.3±25.2), (81.4±27.8) and (71.8±27.6) ml/(min·1.73 m 2)respectively. Conclusions:The outcomes of pediatric renal transplantations are excellent at our center. Future efforts shall be devoted to optimizing the strategies of donor kidney selection and strengthening preoperative evaluations, perioperative and postoperative managements for improving the long-term outcomes of pediatric renal transplantations.

Lymphatic metastasis is the main metastatic route for colorectal cancer, which increases the risk of cancer recurrence and distant metastasis. The properties of the lymph node metastatic colorectal cancer (LNM-CRC) cells are poorly understood, and effective therapies are still lacking. Here, we found that hypoxia-induced fibroblast activation protein alpha (FAPα) expression in LNM-CRC cells. Gain- or loss-function experiments demonstrated that FAPα enhanced tumor cell migration, invasion, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, stemness, and lymphangiogenesis via activation of the STAT3 pathway. In addition, FAPα in tumor cells induced extracellular matrix remodeling and established an immunosuppressive environment via recruiting regulatory T cells, to promote colorectal cancer lymph node metastasis (CRCLNM). Z-GP-DAVLBH, a FAPα-activated prodrug, inhibited CRCLNM by targeting FAPα-positive LNM-CRC cells. Our study highlights the role of FAPα in tumor cells in CRCLNM and provides a potential therapeutic target and promising strategy for CRCLNM.