Heterotopic tracheal transplants: techniques and applications.

Heterotopic tracheal transplants, placed subcutaneously in syngeneic rats have been extensively used in our laboratory. The objective of these experiments was to study the toxic and/or carcinogenic effect of several compounds on the respiratory tract mucosa. This was attained by exposing the transplants to an intraluminal pettet containing the toxicant or carcinogen mixed with an adequate matrix (gelatin, beeswax, stearyl alcohol, silastic, etc.). By varying the concentration of the test chemicals, it is possible to study dose-response relationships, and by changing the pellet matrix, the effects of release rate (dose rate) can be analyzed. Several end points can be studied, such as histological changes in the mucociliary epithelium, changes in mucus secretion, tumor induction and changes in the in vitro behavior of the epithelial cells after in vivo exposure. In addition, by de-epithelializing the tracheal transplants and reseeding them with another cell population, e.g., from previously treated cell cultures or from human specimens and transplanting them subcutaneously in nude mice, completely new vistas on the effect of chemicals can be opened.