To explore the protective effect of salidroside on hepatic ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury and its correlative mechanisms.

Fifty-four healthy SD rats were randomly divided into 3 groups (sham group, IR group, salidroside treatment group) with 18 rats in each group. The administration dosage of salidroside was 30 mg·kg^-1·d^-1 which was administrated 7 days before modeling by intraperitoneal injection, and rats in other two groups were treated with the same volume of isotonic sodium chloride solution. The blood supply of left and middle lobe of liver was obstructed (70% IR model) for 45 minutes, and all the rats were killed at the time points of 4, 8 and 16 hours after reperfusion, respectively. Blood and liver tissue samples were collected soon after death. The concentration of serum ALT and AST was detected; expression of B-cell leukemia/lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax), cysteine-dependent aspartate-directed protease (Caspase)-3, -8, -9 were detected by Western blot; immunohistochemistry was used to detected the above apoptotic related proteins positive hepatocytes and were semi-quantity analyzed; Flow cytometry was used to detect the apoptosis rate of hepatocytes. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare the concentration of serum ALT and AST, expression of apoptotic related proteins and hepatocytes apoptosis rate.

The serum level of ALT and AST in the IR group were higher than sham group and salidroside treatment group (P all<0.05). The expression of Bax, Caspase-3, -8, -9 in salidroside treatment group was lower than IR group, while the expression of Bcl-2 was higher than IR group. There was statistic difference for the relative expression of Bax and Bcl-2 at different time points, Caspase-3 at 4 hours after reperfusion and Caspase-8, -9 at 8, 16 hours after reperfusion between salidroside treatment group and IR group (P all<0.05). The apoptosis rates of salidroside treatment group, IR group and sham group at 8 hours after reperfusion were (24.09±2.43)%, (45.71±3.19)% and (5.46±0.34)%, which had statistic difference (F=4.08, P<0.05).

Salidroside pretreatment can relieve hepatic ischemia reperfusion injury, which may be related to inhibition of cell apoptosis through the endogenous and exogenous pathway.