Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 16, 2026
Liver Cold Storage and Transplantation in the Cold-Adaptive Daurian Ground Squirrels
Published on: July 3, 2025
Impact of prolonged cold preservation on the graft function and gene expression levels in an experimental lung
Osamu Yoshida1, Masaomi Yamane, Sumiharu Yamamoto
1Department of Cancer and Thoracic Surgery, Okayama University, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Okayama 700-8558, Japan.
Purpose:
Ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI) remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality after lung transplantation. Early growth response-1 (EGR1) drives the expression of inflammatory mediators and has an important role in IRI. We hypothesized that the severe IRI caused by a long preservation induces a specific expression pattern of EGR1 and its target genes which would correlate with the lung graft function.
Methods:
SD rat lungs were preserved at 4 °C for 3 or 18 h, then transplanted and reperfused. Pulmonary grafts were evaluated for the blood gas oxygenation and pathological findings. The intra-graft mRNA levels of EGR1 and its downstream target genes were measured by real-time PCR. A Western blotting analysis of the EGR1 expression was used to validate the changes in the protein level.
Results:
There was upregulation of EGR1, MIP-2 and PAI-1 when there was prolonged hypothermic preservation. The expression levels of MIP-2 and PAI-1 were observed to increase for up to 4 h in the 18 h preserved lungs. There were no differences in the expression levels of IL-1β and ICAM-1 between the lungs subjected to short and long periods of ischemia.
Conclusions:
Our data showed that prolonged hypothermic graft preservation deteriorates the pulmonary graft function, which was associated with the induction of EGR1 and its downstream target genes, which may aggravate IRI following lung transplantation.
