Transplantation of mammalian livers following freezing: vascular damage and functional recovery.
We transplanted rat livers cryopreserved at high subzero temperatures with a protocol that mimics freezing in freeze-tolerant animals. The results of nine transplants show that: (a) every single transplanted liver produced bile, which suggests that the cryopreserved livers retained some physiological function; (b) eight of the animals survived between 2 and 4 h with loss of microvascular integrity which suggests that transplantation failure is related to the circulation and tests of bile production are not indicative of transplantation success; and (c) one animal survived for 5 days with an intact circulation which might be due to an unidentified technical variation or could indicate that when the circulation recovers animals with transplanted livers survive.
Ishine
N
N
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Rubinsky
B
B
Lee
C Y
CY
D000818:Animals; D002470:Cell Survival; D015925:Cryopreservation; D005615:Freezing; D008099:Liver / Q000098:blood supply; D008102:Liver Circulation; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley