Reperfusion of a previously ischemic tissue is associated with additional injury leading to structural and functional alterations in many organs including the liver. The injury induced during reperfusion is evolved a biphasic pattern consisting of an early stage started upon reoxygenation and a delayed phase. It is thought that reactive oxygen species formation during reperfusion induces a cascade of series of cellular events that eventually leads to hepatocellur injury. However, the detailed mechanisms of cell death and the structural alterations induced during different stages of reperfusion injury i.e. the early stage, are not completely determined yet.
A research article to be published on April 28, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addressed this question. The research team led by Dr. HA Arab at University of Tehran carried out a study to characterize the feature of the injury induced in the early stage of reperfusion in the rat liver.
The authors examined the effects of 60 min lobar ischemia followed by different periods of 5, 10, 30, 45, 60 and 120 min reperfusion. It was found that cell vacoulations, bleb formation and focal hepatitis were the most important changes induced by in vivo lobar ischemia in the rat liver. However, during reperfusion not only some changes including bleb formation was reduced, but some other alterations including portal hepatitis, inflammation and the induction of apoptosis, were occurred. Biochemical analysis showed that the amounts of lactate dehydrogenase, alanine aminotransfrase and aspartate aminotransfrase, creatinine and urea were significantly increased in the serums obtained from the animals exposed to hepatic ischemia-reperfusion. The results of this study indicate that the occurrence of inflammation and the subsequent cell death by apoptosis are the most important changes in the early stage of hepatic reperfusion injury and the presence of apoptotic bodies were augmented as the time of reperfusion was increased.
Reference: Arab HA, Sasani F, Rafiee MH, Fatemi A, Javaheri A. Histological and biochemical alterations in early-stage lobar ischemia-reperfusion in rat liver. World J Gastroenterol 2009;
15(16): 1951-1957
http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/15/1951.asp
Correspondence to: Hossein Ali Arab, PhD, Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tehran, Tehran 14155, Iran. harab@ut.ac.ir
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World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection and provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.
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