Fax +41 61 306 12 34 E-Mail karger@karger.ch www.karger.com Original Paper Eur Surg Res 2010;45:1–8 DOI: 10.1159/000315479 Postconditioning and Remote Postconditioning of Ischemic Rat Cardiac Grafts Y. Tang   a, b A. Mennander   b N. Oksala   c M. Atalay   g H. Syvala   d A. Lagerstedt   e M. Kuuslahti   d R. Nieminen   f N. Anas   b E. Moilanen   f M. Tarkka   b   a  Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Nanchang University Hospital, Jiangxi, China; b  Heart Center and c  Department of Vascular Surgery, Tampere University Hospital, Departments of d  Anatomy and e  Pathology, Tampere University, and f  Immunopharmacology Research Group, Medical School, Tampere University and Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, and g  Institute of Biomedicine, Physiology, Kuopio University, Kuopio, Finland oxidation and oxidative stress, decreased after RPostC (p ! 0.05), contraction band necrosis was less prominent in both PostC and RPostC. Conclusion: Both PostC and RPostC have a histopathologic impact after 24 h of reperfusion of warm ischemic rat cardiac grafts. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel Introduction Ischemic injury of the heart is of major concern influ- encing the outcome after transplantation, especially as interest in the use of marginal donors is gaining popular- ity due to lack of cardiac grafts [1]. Ischemia-reperfusion injury of the cardiac graft induces in the recipient a cas- cade of oxidative-stress-related events such as protein ox- idation leading to increased risk of apoptosis and cell death. On the other hand, oxidative stress downregulates the synthesis of cytoprotective heat shock proteins like heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) [2, 3]. In order to alleviate the detrimental effects of isch- emia-reperfusion injury, interventions such as cardiac postconditioning (PostC) have gained attention [4–11]. Key Words Heterotopic heart transplantation  Postconditioning  Remote postconditioning  Apoptosis  Oxidative stress Abstract Background: Global warm ischemia of transplanted cardiac grafts is associated with apoptosis and subsequent tissue necrosis. It is suggested that postconditioning (PostC) may ameliorate the early outcome of cardiac grafts after isch- emia-reperfusion. We investigated whether PostC and re- mote postconditioning (RPostC) have a histopathologic im- pact after transplantation of warm ischemic rat cardiac grafts. Materials and Methods: Thirteen rats were random- ized to undergo either PostC or RPostC after heterotopic transplantation of ischemic cardiac grafts. Six rats without intervention besides transplantation served as controls (con- trol). The recipient rats were sacrificed 24 h after transplanta- tion to evaluate histopathology and apoptotic index. Re- sults: No significant differences were observed between the study groups in terms of graft heat shock protein 70 and ox- ygen radical absorbing capacity, an indicator of antioxidant capacity. While apoptosis and PCARB, a marker of protein Received: September 7, 2009 Accepted after revision: May 19, 2010 Published online: July 13, 2010 Ari A. Mennander, MD, PhD Heart Center, Tampere University Hospital Teiskontie 35 FI–33521 Tampere (Finland) Tel. +358 3 3116 4945, Fax +358 3 3116 5756, E-Mail ari.mennander  @  pshp.fi © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel 0014–312X/10/0451–0001$26.00/0 Accessible online at: www.karger.com/esr