Correlative study between heat shock protein 70 and the early acute rejection after orthotopic liver transplantation in rats

Objective To do a correlative research between heat shock protein (HSP) 70 and early acute rejection after liver transplantation in rats and explore its immunity mechanism. Methods Modified Kamada’s two-cuff method was used for establishment of orthotopic liver transplantation in rats. BN (Rt1n) and LEW (Rt1l) rats were randomly divided into four groups. Recipients’ specimens were collected for test,the grafts were harvested on the 2,4 and 6 posttransplantation day and were used to detect the expression of HSP70 with immunohistochemistry and Western Blotting quantitative methods. The correlation between HSP70 and pathological findings was observed. Results Prolonged cold ischemia not only up-regulated the expression of HSP70,but also advanced peak value of the expression of them. There was a significant correlation between expression of HSP70 and reject activity index in allografts groups (P0.05,r=0.928). Conclusion The increased level of HSP70 may be related to the occurrence of the early acute rejection,and the survival rate of two weeks after liver transplantation in rats.