Anti-Apoptotic effects of 3,3',5-triiodo-lthyronine in the liver of brain-dead rats

Abstract

© 2015 Rebolledo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background Thyroid hormone treatment in brain-dead organ donors has been extensively studied and applied in the clinical setting. However, its clinical applicability remains controversial due to a varying degree of success and a lack of mechanistic understanding about the therapeutic effects of 3,3',5-Triiodo-L-thyronine (T3). T3 pre-conditioning leads to anti-Apoptotic and promitotic effects in liver tissue following ischemia/reperfusion injury. Therefore, we aimed to study the effects of T3 pre-conditioning in the liver of brain-dead rats. Methods Brain death (BD) was induced in mechanically ventilated rats by inflation of a Fogarty catheter in the epidural space. T3 (0.1 mg/kg) or vehicle was administered intraperitoneally 2 h p