Background: The role of nitric oxide (NO) in ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury is controversial as both beneficial and harmful effects have been reported. We explored the potential role of a pharmacological agent recently shown to generate NO metabolically in the liver in an animal model of transplantation.
Methods: The effect of a selective hepatic NO donor, O2-vinyl 1-(pyrrolidin-1-yl)diazen-1-ium-1,2-diolate (V-PYRRO/NO), on hepatic hemodynamics and biliary function was evaluated in both the in situ and I/R pig liver.
Results: V-PYRRO/NO significantly reduced in situ hepatic vascular resistance (HVR) without altering systolic blood pressure. Portal vein flow was essentially unchanged during in situ infusions while hepatic artery flow nearly doubled (P=0.03). After I/R, V-PYRRO/NO infusions significantly reduced both portal vein pressure (PVP) and HVR (P=0.04). Also, serum bile acid clearance increased from 15% when taurocholate (TC) was infused alone to 46% (P=0.007) when infused simultaneously with V-PYRRO/NO. Aqueous bile production tripled with TC and V-PYRRO/NO as compared to TC alone (P=0.04). Analysis of bile outputs revealed a significant increase in biliary cholesterol, biliary phospholipid, and biliary bile acid (P<0.05) with V-PYRRO/NO infusion.
Conclusions: The hepato-selective nitric oxide donor, V-PYRRO/NO, reduced hepatic resistance parameters of the pig liver both before and after I/R and improved the plasma clearance of bile acid and biliary outputs of bile acid-dependent compounds. The augmented function observed after I/R may be due to improvements in hepatic blood flow secondary to altered hepatic hemodynamics.