Study On TRAIL And Its Receptors In Thymus And Kidney Of Severely Burned Rats

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is an initiative death of cells controlled by self genes in physiological and pathophysiological situations. Apoptosis induced by burn is a common phenomenon in the course of disease and this process is probably the direct cause of immune suppression after severe burns. More recent researches approved that burn induced immuno-suppression is accompanied by abnormal apoptosis in thymus.TRAIL(TNF related apoptosis inducing ligand , also called Apo2 ligand or Apo2L ) is the new member of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) cytokine family, which has inimitable apoptosis inducing characters. TRAIL has no cytoxicity on normal tissues under physiological condition. Only in pathological condition, it is activated to participate in the immune response. TRAIL receptors include death receptor 4 (DR4), death receptor (DR5), decoy receptor 1 (DcR1) and decoy receptor (DcR2). As potent immune surveillance and immune effective molecules, what roles TRAIL played in the pathogenesis of immune suppression after severe burn is not yet known. The levels of apoptosis of thymus and the expression of TRAIL and its related receptors were determined in this study. We took the lead in carrying out the study on the mechanism of TRAIL that may involve in the imbalance...