br Conclusions br Conflict of

Conclusions
Conflict of interest
Transparency document
Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province [Grant C2006001035] and the Technology Supporting Plan of Hebei Province [Grant 10276434]. We thank the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at Hebei Medical University for providing the reference standard samples of Dip and its metabolites.
Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is the only curative therapy available for patients with end-stage liver disease. The surgical procedure of liver transplantation inherently involves cold ischemia during graft preservation , followed by reperfusion of the transplanted graft which results in varying degrees of cold ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) injury. Cold I/R injury is a major cause of both initial poor function and primary graft non-function, leading to organ dysfunction and early graft failure, which carries a high mortality rate if patients are not re-transplanted immediately. I/R injury greatly contributes to the impaired function of the transplanted liver graft and further depletes the already scarce donor pool. The need to ameliorate I/R injury in liver transplantation is imminent, however, no therapeutic agents are available to prevent I/R injury during OLT. The activities of cytochrome P450 (CYP450) k145 receptor are an important indicator of liver graft function ., , Considering that the liver is the most important site of drug metabolism and clearance, changes in CYP450 activity can directly alter the hepatic clearance of drugs. Consequences of reduced drug clearance include drug toxicity and sub-therapeutic plasma drug concentrations, which could precipitate hepatic dysfunction or lead to graft failure. Cold I/R injury is associated with a pro-inflammatory response that can alter CYP450 activity in the transplanted liver graft. Although various models of inflammation have been used to mimic effects of I/R injury on CYP450 activity, , limited data exist on direct effects of cold hepatic I/R injury on CYP450 expression and activity in a clinically relevant animal OLT model. Different models of inflammation and infection suppress different CYP450 isoforms ., Therefore, it is important to quantify the changes in CYP450 regulation in the liver graft post-transplant in a clinically relevant animal OLT model, which incorporates liver graft storage in cold preservation solution, followed by warm reperfusion after vascular reconnection. Of the various pharmacological agents that have been explored to minimize I/R injury during OLT, the prostaglandin (PG) class of drugs has been evaluated to the greatest extent. PGs have well characterized vasodilatory and anti-platelet aggregatory properties and many analogs, including prostacyclin (PGI), have been evaluated for their ability to reduce hepatic I/R injury after OLT. However, poor stability, intolerable side effects, and no apparent difference in primary endpoint have limited their clinical application thus far. Treprostinil (Remodulin®), the most recent FDA-approved PGI analog for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, has a higher stability, potency, and longer elimination half-life than other PGI analogs available, thereby, allowing greater therapeutic concentrations to be achieved with less adverse effects. Recently, we demonstrated that treprostinil ameliorated hepatic I/R injury during rat OLT. Administration of treprostinil to donor and recipient animals prior to hepatectomy and transplantation significantly reduced neutrophil infiltration and hepatic necrosis, restored ATP levels in liver grafts to normal, preserved the sinusoidal endothelial cell lining and reduced platelet deposition early post-transplantation. Finally, hepatic tissue blood flow, which was significantly compromised in the placebo-treated group, was maintained to near normal values by treprostinil. In the current study, we examine effects of I/R injury on CYP450 activity and the impact of treatment with treprostinil to prevent I/R injury in a rat OLT model. We hypothesized that treprostinil would reduce hepatic inflammation, thereby resulting in improved CYP450 activity in liver graft tissue post-transplantation. We evaluated this hypothesis using a clinically relevant rat orthotopic liver transplantation model.