ABSTRACT
Objective:To observe the pulmonary apoptosis resulted from ischemia reperfusion lung injury in rats. Methods: Forty male SD rats, weighing 300 350 g,were randomly divided into 8 groups: 6 ischemia reperfusion group,simple ischemia group and control group( n =5).An in situ ischemia reperfusion lung injury rat model was established. Apoptotic cells were detected by the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediate dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) technique and the apoptotic DNA fragments by pulmonary DNA electrophoresis. Electron microscopy was performed to verify the morphologic changes of apoptosis. Results: Obvious apoptosis of pneumocytes occurred early after(30 min) ischemia reperfusion lung injury, with the peak on 2 h after reperfusion, and there were no significant differences 12 h after reperfusion compared with control group. There was a slight but no statistically significant elevation of apoptotic pneumocytes number in simple ischemia group compared with controls. Conclusion: The result indicates that apoptosis may contribute significantly to ischemia reperfusion lung injury.