IN TRANSPLANTATION, the principal problems are ischemia-reperfusion injury, preservation injury, rejection, infection, and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), etc. Of these, ischemia-reperfusion/preservation injury is especially important, because it can cause primary nonfunction and its improvement is thereby crucial for the success of organ transplantation. Recently, there have been reports that showing that induction of heat shock protein (hsp) protects against ischemia-reperfusion injury and preservation injury. However, the mechanisms of this protective effect remain unknown and, as yet, a nontoxic clinical procedure for induction of hsp remains unavailable. In this study, we focused on geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), which is an antiulcer drug developed in Japan and used clinically for the treatment of gastric ulcer and gastritis. Its protective effects in other organs as well as the stomach have been reported; for instance, in one study, an improved histologic status in subjects with chronic hepatic injury was seen. It has been suggested that GGA may exert cytoprotective action through an increase of prostaglandin E2, 7 maintenance of cNOS activity, or induction of hsp. Therefore, in this study we investigate whether intraarterial administration of GGA to rats could induce expression of hsp-70 in various organs.
