National medical research centre for oncology

Regenerative medicine is a vital area that advances methods addressing the process of liver regeneration. The liver has the unique ability to return to standard size within a short period of time after its injury or partial hepatectomy. Hepatocytes are highly active metabolic cells, which have a large number of mitochondria, suggesting a biologically significant role for the mitochondrial dynamics in hepatocyte damage and repair. The aim hereof is to develop a method for accelerating the process of liver regeneration in rats based on the transplantation of mitochondria isolated from the liver of intact rats. Materials and methods. Experimental animals (n = 30) used by us were white outbred rats divided into groups as follows: 1) a comparison group to include intact animals (n = 10); 2) a reference group with liver resection + use of saline solution (n = 10); 3) the main group with liver resection + mitochondrial therapy (MCT) (n = 10). In the reference and the main groups, under xylazoletil anesthesia, median laparotomy was performed and the maximum allowable resection of the left lobe of the liver was executed. Mitochondria of the intact liver were diluted with a 0.9% NaCl solution to a protein concentration of 11.6 g/l and injected into the post-surgery rats of the main group (group No. 3). The above procedure was carried out for 14 days. Animals of the reference group were intraperitoneally injected with 0.5 ml of saline solution according to a similar scheme. Statistical analysis was performed with the Statistica 10.0 Software. Results. According to the weight indices of the liver after MCT, the mass of the organ increased by a factor of 1.7 p˂0.05) relative to the reference group without MCT. At the same time, compared with the indicators in animals of the comparison group (intact animals), the mass of the organ exceeded 1.6 times (p˂0.05), and the liver stump itself during MCT in its mass exceeded by 3.2 times the weight indicators of the liver stump in rats without the MCT. Conclusion. As a result of the experiment on the use of MCT of the liver, it can be concluded that the resection of the liver lobe and subsequent processes in the liver tissue against the background of MCT acquire pronounced features of accelerating the physiological regeneration, addressing the restoration of stromal and parenchymal components.