Postconditioning is protective in renal reperfusion injury only in male rats. A gender difference study

We investigated the impact of sex on the protective effect of postconditioning (POC), a series of brief ischemia-reperfusion (IR) cycles at the reperfusion onset, as a recently described novel approach to attenuate renal IR injury. In this study, the left renal pedicles of uni-nephrectomized male and female rats were clamped for 45 minutes followed by 24 hours of reperfusion as IR groups. Uni-nephrectomized, sham-operated male and female rats served as control groups. Ischemic postconditioning was performed using 4 cycles of 10 seconds of IR of renal pedicle at the end of the ischemia. Twenty-four hours later, BUN (blood urea nitrogen), plasma creatinine (Cr), and renal histological changes, as well as kidney levels of MDA (malondialdehyde) and SOD (superoxide dismutase) as oxidative stress markers were evaluated to detect the protective effect of POC against IR injury in rats.

Induction of IR resulted in significant reduction in renal function, demonstrated by increase in plasma Cr and BUN, histological changes and oxidative stress in both genders. Application of POC afforded significant protection against these injuries in male rats, namely decreased levels of BUN and Cr, histological improvements and less oxidative damages. However, there were no significant differences in the above-mentioned parameters in female rats.

While POC is shown to be beneficial against renal IR injury in male rats, it did not show any protective effect in female rats.