Int J Biol Sci 2018; 14(10):1186-1195. doi:10.7150/ijbs.24898 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Department of Surgery, Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
2. Department of Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
3. Dumont-UCLA Transplant Center, Division of Liver and Pancreas Transplantation, Department of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) of the liver is a primary cause of post-liver-surgery complications and ischemic preconditioning (IPC) has been verified to protect against ischemia-reperfusion injury. TIM-4 activation plays an important role in macrophage mediated hepatic IRI. This study aimed to determine whether IPC protects against hepatic IRI through inhibiting TIM-4 activation. In this study, a model of warm liver ischemia (90 min) and reperfusion for 6 h was used. Mice were subjected to ischemia-reperfusion injury with or without ischemic preconditioning and TIM4 blocking antibody. Western blot was determined to detect the expression of TIM4 protein and mitochondrial apoptosis-related protein expression. Liver function was evaluated using the level of alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST), cell apoptosis and pathological examination. We found that compared with the control group, ischemic preconditioning reduced IRI by decreasing hepatocyte apoptosis, ALT, AST, CD68 and CD3 positive cells, tissue myeloperoxidase activity(MPO), and downregulating TIM-4 expression. TIM4 blocking could reduce CD68 and CD3 positive cells in liver. Furthermore, activated monocytes transfusion significantly abolished the protect effect of IPC with increased hepatocyte apoptosis, ALT, AST, CD68 and CD3 positive cells while TIM-4 knockdown monocytes lost this effect. These results suggested that IPC protects against hepatic IRI by downregulating TIM-4 and indicated TIM-4 would be a novel therapeutic target to minimize IRI.
Keywords: TIM4, Ischemic preconditioning (IPC), Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI)