von Frankenberg M, Forman D T, Frey W, Stachlewitz R F, Bunzendahl H, Thurman R G
Department of Pharmacology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599, USA.
Ann Clin Lab Sci. 1997 Jul-Aug;27(4):287-92.
Shortage of organ donors presents a perplexing problem in liver transplantation, and improved methods for evaluating the viability of organs prior to implantation are urgently needed. In the present study, the hypothesis was evaluated that grafts from fatty livers release more amino acids than non-fatty controls during organ harvest. Amino acids in graft rinse effluents at the time of harvest and after cold storage were measured by reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography and compared with plasma aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels and recipient survival. Twenty-four hours after transplantation of fatty livers, AST levels in recipient rats were increased more than two-fold compared to non-fatty controls (p < 0.01). Survival in the control group was 83 percent, whereas animals receiving fatty livers from ethanol-treated rats survived no longer than 7 days after transplantation (p < 0.05). The rate of release of amino acids from the liver explant was two-fold higher during the harvest procedure (0.5 h) than during the subsequent 23.5 hour cold storage period (435 +/- 70 vs. 186 +/- 14 nmol/ml/hr/g liver, p < 0.001). Further, in the early rinse effluent, amino acids were released about two-fold faster from fatty livers than from controls (p < 0.05). This study demonstrates that the release of amino acids from liver explants increases during the harvesting procedure and is about two-fold higher in fatty livers which fail after transplantation than in surviving controls. It is proposed that amino acid release from explants after organ harvest might serve as a useful marker to evaluate graft function prior to transplantation.
器官供体短缺是肝移植中一个棘手的问题，因此迫切需要改进器官植入前评估其活力的方法。在本研究中，对以下假设进行了评估：在器官获取过程中，来自脂肪肝的移植物比非脂肪肝的对照移植物释放更多氨基酸。通过反相高效液相色谱法测量获取时和冷藏后移植物冲洗流出液中的氨基酸，并与血浆天冬氨酸转氨酶（AST）水平及受体存活率进行比较。脂肪肝移植24小时后，受体大鼠的AST水平比非脂肪肝对照组升高了两倍多（p < 0.01）。对照组的存活率为83%，而接受乙醇处理大鼠的脂肪肝的动物在移植后存活时间不超过7天（p < 0.05）。在获取过程（0.5小时）中，肝脏外植体的氨基酸释放速率比随后23.5小时的冷藏期高出两倍（435 ± 70对186 ± 14 nmol/ml/小时/克肝脏，p < 0.001）。此外，在早期冲洗流出液中，脂肪肝释放氨基酸的速度比对照快约两倍（p < 0.05）。本研究表明，肝脏外植体在获取过程中氨基酸释放增加，移植后失败的脂肪肝中的氨基酸释放量比存活的对照高约两倍。有人提出，器官获取后外植体释放的氨基酸可能作为移植前评估移植物功能的有用标志物。
