Vitamin E succinate reduces ischemia/reperfusion injury in steatotic livers

Steatotic livers represent a growing proportion of marginal organs available for transplantation. These livers are highly prone to primary nonfunction following transplantation and are therefore routinely turned down for surgery. Given the elevated levels and sensitivity for reactive oxygen species (ROS) in these livers, we evaluated whether pretreatment with a targeted ROS scavenger, vitamin E succinate, increased survival and decreased injury after ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). For this study, ob/ob mice received 50 IU/d vitamin E succinate in supplemented vs control chow for 7 days, and were subjected to 15 minutes of total hepatic ischemia and 24 hours of reperfusion. Treatment resulted in a 5-fold decrease in serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels after reperfusion, mirrored by significant decreases in hepatocellular necrosis. These results suggested that targeted antioxidants such as vitamin E succinate may prove to be highly applicable for the pretreatment of steatotic donor livers, increasing their tolerance for I/R and the transplantation process.