ITGA6 and Chagas disease: Using implants of neonatal hearts into the subcutaneous tissue of the ears from adult syngeneic recipients, we showed that blocking VLA-6-mediated interactions with anti-VLA-6 prevented heart graft rejection by autoreactive spleen-derived CD4+ T lymphocytes obtained from mice previously infected with the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease [9].