Abstract:

BACKGROUND: In recent years, many studies have shown that erythropoietin plays a protective role in many tissues and organs from ischemia/reperfusion injury including the heart and brain.
OBJECTIVE: To observe the effects of recombinant human erythropoietin postconditioning on inducible nitric oxide synthase, nitric oxide and ultrastructure in rabbit hindlimb gastrocnemius before and after ischemia/reperfusion injury.
METHODS: Adult rabbits were randomly divided into three groups: blank control, model, and recombinant human erythropoietin postconditioning. The rabbits in the latter two groups were created into experimental models of ischemia/reperfusion injury of left hind limb gastrocnemius. At 2 hours after ischemia, the rabbits in the recombinant human erythropoietin postconditioning group were intravenously injected with recombinant human erythropoietin.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: At 4 and 12 hours after reperfusion, inducible nitric oxide synthase and nitric oxide levels were significantly lower in the recombinant human erythropoietin postconditioning group than in the model group (P < 0.05). The electronic microscope results of gastrocnemius cell ultrastructure showed that in the model group, endothelial cell membrane was lysed and obviously swollen, and mitochondrion in the muscle fiber was also swollen; compared with the model group, the muscle fiber injury was obviously mild in the recombinant human erythropoietin postconditioning group: Z line and the structure of each band within the sarcomere was basically normal, and the structure of most mitochondria was normal. These results showed that recombinant human erythropoietin postconditioning can downregulate the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase protein expression and decrease nitric oxide levels after perfusion, and thereby improve ischemia/reperfusion injury of the skeletal muscle.