Transcriptomics of Human Liver Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury

For orthotopic liver transplants, ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is known to compromise allograft survival. To better understand the transcriptomics of immune responses underlying liver transplant IRI, RNA-seq was performed on liver biopsies from 23 IRI+ and 17 IRI- patients, both pre-transplant and post-transplant. Genes that are differentially expressed in IRI+ samples, along with the pathways enriched for by those genes, were identified. Needle-core liver biopsies from liver transplant recipients were obtained at 2 timepoints: pre-transplantation (n = 40) and post-transplantation (n = 40). Of the 40 samples at each timepoint, 23 were IRI+ and 17 were IRI-. All samples were sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq3000 platform.