Effect Of Ischemic Postconditioning On NF-κB Activation Signaling Pathway In Early Lung Transplantation

Objective：To study the effect of ischemic postconditioning on early donor rabbit lungNF-κB, TNF-α and IKKβ mRNA expression during allogeneic lung transplantation and toanalyze the possible protective mechanism to transplanted lung.Methods：All40rabbits were randomly allocated to three different groups: shamoperation group (Sham, n=8), ischemia-reperfusion group (I/R,8pairs) and ischemicpostconditioning group (IPostC,8pairs).Left lung orthotopic transplantations were donewith “three-cannulas technique” in I/R and IPostC group, respectively. In I/R group,perfusion was restored by pulmonary artery immediately after transplantation, whereas inthe IPostC group,3cycles of1min perfusion/1min occlusion of pulmonary artery wereperformed, namely ischemic postcontioning, before recovery of perfusion. The levels ofNF-κB, TNF-α and expression of IKKβ mRNA in the lungs were assayed. Thepathological changes of the lung tissues were observed with hematoxylin-eosin（HE）staining.Results：NF-κB and TNF-α concentrations, expression of IKKβ mRNA and W/D weresignificantly lower in Sham group than that in I/R group and IPostC group(P<0.05).Compared to I/R group, three parameters mentioned above in IPostC group werealso decreased significantly(P<0.05).Histological changes showed that the lung injury inIPostC group was less than that in I/R group.Conclusion：Ischemic postconditioning can reduce ischemic reperfusion injury in earlylung transplantation. One of possible mechanisms is that postconditioning inhibits theactivation of IKKβ/NF-κB classic signaling pathway and expressions of TNF-α relatedinflammatory factor, thereby reduces the lung injury.