Intestinal Ischemic Preconditioning Reduces Hepatic Ischemia-reperfusion Injury In Rats

Objective: hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury happened frequently and the underlying mechanism was complicated .When the total hepatic blood flow was obstructed , severe congesting in rats intestine destroyed the intestinal mucosa which aggravated the hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury. Recently, the protection of remote ischemic preconditioning was found in heart. In this study, we made rat hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury models with total inflow occlusion to investigate the effect and mechanism of the intestinal ischemic preconditioning on hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury in rats.Methods: 30 SD rats were divided into three groups randomly: sham-operated group(Sham group), ischemia–reperfusion group(IR group: produced by total inflow occlusion for 30 min),and remote ischemic preconditioning group(RIPC group: induced with superior mesenteric artery occlusion before HIRI by 10 min ischemia and 10 min reperfusion). Markers of liver and intesine injury and TNF-α,ICAM-1 in liver were measured after reperfusion for 120 min.Results: IR group was associated with increased serum aminotransferases(ALT AST),MPO activity, endotoxin and the pathological injury scores compared with sham group. Also, IR group was associated with increased serum aminotransferases(ALT AST),MPO activity endotoxin and the pathological injury scores compared with RIPC group. Meanwhile,in liver tissue TNF-αand ICAM-1 expression were high when IR only. There was significant improvement in these variables in RIPC group.Conclusion: RIPC of the intestine reduced HIRI which may depend on the decrease of pro-inflammatory and activity of neutrophils.