Experimental study of ultrasound microbubble-mediated HGF gene transfer on liver fibrosis in rats

Objective To investigate the efficiency of ultrasound microbubble-mediated HGF gene transfer on liver fibrosis in rats. Methods The eukaryotic expression vector pMD18-T/HGF was constructed. The rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: normal group, model group, low dose group,middle dose group and high dose group. The rat liver fibrosis were induced. At day 14 after treatment, the rats were sacrificed, the ALT lever were evaluated, pathological evaluation of liver fibrosis were made,immunohistochemical evaluation of HGF protein expressions were observed, HGF mRNA expression were detected by RT-PCR. Results Liver 1function after the treatment showed that the treatment groups were better than model group ( P ＜ 0. 05). The difference between low dose group and normal group showed significant difference ( P ＜0.05), and the difference between middle/high dose groups and normal group showed no significant ( P ＞0. 05). Pathological results showed that the treatment groups could reduce liver fibrosis;treatment groups had the positive HGF expression by immunohistochemistry and the expression level increased with the increasement of the treatment dose ( P ＜0.05). RT-PCR showed HGF mRNA expression in the treatment groups were higher than in model group ( P ＜0.05). Conclusions Ultrasound microbubbles which carrying HGF can inhibit the process of hepatic fibrosis. Key words: Ultrasonography ;  Microbubbles ;  Liver cirrhosis;  Hepatocyte growth factor