The involvement of heat shock proteins in murine liver regeneration

Partial hepatectomy (PHx) in mammals is a very common experimental model to investigate the process of liver regeneration. The surgery itself could give birth to a series of stresses, such as the temporary raise of body temperature and the ischaemia-reperfusion injury. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) were a family of stress-inducible proteins involved in maintaining cell homeostasis and regulating the immune system. In our study, we intended to investigate the expression and role of HSPs in liver regeneration. Using RT-PCR and Western blotting, we determined the expression in regenerating liver of HSP27, HSP60, HSP70 and HSP90 in mRNA level and protein level, respectively, with mice treated with sham operation as controls. We also used quercertin as an inhibitor of HSPs to explore their effects on liver regeneration. We found that hepatic expression of HSPs increased at the early phase of liver regeneration and declined to the constitutively low level later. Moreover, quercetin pretreatment delayed the progress of liver regeneration in mice via inhibition of HSPs. The results indicated that HSPs played an important role in liver regeneration.