Gene expression signatures for rat liver grafts

Acute rejection remains an important risk factor affecting the survival of recipients following transplantation. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) are used in the treatment of organ transplantation due to their immunomodulatory ability. BMMSCs were isolated from rat bone marrow and modified with the adenovirus for heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) gene. Saline solution, BMMSCs or HO-1/BMMSCs were perfused into the donor liver in vitro using a normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) system, followed by liver transplantation. The liver grafts were collected at 7 days post-transplantation. Gene chip technology was used to detect differential gene expression. The rats were divided into the following five groups according to the different liver treatments: sham operated (Sham) group; static cold storage (SCS) group; NMP group; NMP combined with BMMSCs (BMP) group; and NMP combined with HO-1/BMMSCs (HMP) group.The rats were subjected to the orthotopic liver transplantation. On day 7 after liver transplantation, the recipient was euthanized and liver grafts were obtained. One independent experiments were performed at each time.