To investigate whether rats’ hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (HIRI) can be promoted by hepatocyte growth factor (PHGF) by up-regulating the expression of nuclear respiratory factor-1 (NRF-1) and mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM).

First, the candidate interference sequences were introduced into HSC-T6 of rat hepatic satellate cells, and the expression of NRF-1, TFAM proteins and mRNA was detected to select the strongest interference sequences. Second, 108 SD rats were randomly divided into three groups according to different reperfusion time (1,3,7 d), with 36 rats in each group. At each time point, the rats were divided into two groups with 18 rats in each group, which were the experimental group and the control group (in the experimental group, the corresponding lentiviral particles were injected into the tail vein, 4 days before the operation). The experimental group and the control group were set into 3 groups, 6 rats in each group, respectively a negative silencing group, a targeted silencing NRF-1 group, and a targeted silencing TFAM group. Rat serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) was detected at each time point, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin (TBIL) content, and expression levels of NRF-1 and TFAM mRNA in liver tissue, pathological changes in rat liver after 7 days of HE staining.

T2 and N3 were selected from the candidate sequences to interfere with the expression of TFAM and NRF-1. Treatment of HIRI model RNAi rats with PHGF showed that compared with the negative silencing group, reducing the levels of NRF-1 and TFAM mRNA would result in significantly higher levels of ALT, AST, and TBIL (P<0.05). After treatment with PHGF, the contents of ALT, AST, and TBIL were significantly lower than those treated with normal saline, and the differences were most obvious on the 7th day, and the increase of NRF-1 and TFAM mRNA increased significantly (P<0.05).

PHGF can protect HIRI by up-regulating the expression of NRF-1 and TFAM.