Effect of Ischemic Postconditioning on Cell Apoptosis Induced by Renal Ischemic Reperfusion Injury in Rats

Objictive To investigate the protective effect of ischemic postconditioning(IPostC) against apoptosis after renal ischemic reperfusion injury.Methods After right nephrectomy,rats were subjected to 45 min of left renal ischemia followed by 6 h reperfusion.IPostC was conducted by six cycles of 10 sec reperfusion/10 sec renal pedicle occlusion at the end of ischemia,followed by 6 h reperfusion.Renal function was evaluated by detecting the levels of serum creatine and urea nitrogen;the renal pathologic change was observed by HE staining;apoptosis was detected by TUNEL method;Western blotting was used to evaluate the protein expression of Bcl-2and Bax.Results Our data showed that ischemic postconditioning decreased the levels of serum creatine and urea nitrogen,and improved the renal pathologic change.Ischemic postconditioning attenuated cell apoptosis induced by ischemic reperfusion(P 0.05) ,increased the protein expression of Bcl-2 and decreased the protein expression of Bax(P 0.05) .Conclusions Ischemic postconditioning can improve renal function and inhibit cell apoptosis.The protective effect may be related with the upregulation of the protein expression of Bcl-2 and the downregulation of the protein expression of Bax.