Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: katieHaylor on 02/08/2017 13:36:22

Title: Does receiving an organ donation affect your DNA?
Post by: katieHaylor on 02/08/2017 13:36:22

Glen would like to know:

Does receiving an organ donation change a person's DNA in any way?

What do you think?

Title: Re: Does receiving an organ donation affect your DNA?
Post by: evan_au on 02/08/2017 23:42:53

Yes. That organ now has different DNA.

In the case of bone marrow transplant (sometimes performed for leukemia treatment), the blood supply is also transformed, since blood is generated from the bone marrow.

This would be one way of curing a genetic disease like sickle-cell anemia or thalassemia.

Having a baby (a temporary transplant) also permanently changes the mother's DNA - on a small scale.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchimerism

Title: Re: Does receiving an organ donation affect your DNA?
Post by: RD on 03/08/2017 05:16:19

The immune-suppression required to prevent rejection of the transplant, greatly increases the risk of the organ recipient developing cancer.
In part the mechanism seems to be via cancer-causing viruses, which modify DNA, which increase in number when the immune-system is suppressed.

Quote from:  nih.gov

Data from several population-based studies comparing cancer risk in recipients of solid organ transplants with that in the general population have demonstrated increased risk for a broad range of cancers, predominantly those with a known or suspected infectious cause ...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19343829 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19343829)