Intravenous infusion of ulinastatin attenuates acute kidney injury after cold ischemia/reperfusion.

Background: Administration of ulinastatin was proved to protect many organs from ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) induced injury, yet its protective effects on renal I/R injury under cold condition and mechanism still remain unclear.

Aims: In the present study, the protective effects of ulinastatin on renal cold I/R injury as well as its mechanism were investigated.

Methods And Results: Renal cold I/R model was constructed via cross-clamping of left renal artery and vein at 4 °C. The ulinastatin was administrated and multi-methods were performed to evaluate the protective effects. The results showed that ulinastatin could mitigate the renal cold I/R injury. In addition, the attenuated kidney cold I/R injury by ulinastatin was also accompanied with its regulating capability of the microenvironment, such as decreased acute inflammatory response, oxidative stress damage and apoptosis, as well as attenuation of vasculature levels decrease, as evidence by reduced TNF-α, IL-6 mRNA expression, MDA levels and apoptosis, higher levels of SOD activity and CD31/α-SMA expression.

Conclusion: The present study suggested that ulinastatin might be clinically useful in reducing preservation injury induced by cold I/R during renal transplantation surgery.