Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine whether remote ischemic preconditioning (rPeC) method can protect the hepatic IR injury in rat or not and to investigate underlying protective mechanisms. Materials and Methods: Seventeen SD rats were divided into three groups: group I, the only hepatic IR injury (n=5); (2) group II, the hepatic IR injury with rPeC (n=7); (3) group III, the hepatic IR injury with remote postconditioning (rPoC) (n=5) Three cycles of 5-min ischemia & 5-min reperfusion via occlusion & release of right femoral artery were applied during hepatic ischemia and before reperfusion in group II and after ischemia and right at the reperfusion in group III. The hepatic blood supply was interrupted by occlusion of the portal triad for 30 min followed by reperfusion. The blood samples were drawn from the aorta and liver tissue was obtained at 24 hours after the surgery. Results: ALT level in group III was lower than group I. (p<0.05) The AST and ALT level in group II had the lower tendency compared with group I. However, there was no significant difference. Also we analyzed Bax, Bcl-2, and cleaved Caspase-3 associated with apoptosis via western blot analysis. In Bax/β-actin, mean values (± SD) of groups were 1.29±0.26 (group I), 0.89±0.15 (II), and 1.02 ± 0.23 (III), respectively. The level of Bax/β-actin in group II was significantly lower than the group I. (*p<0.05) In cleaved Caspase/β-actin, group I, II, and III were 0.93 ± 0.22, 0.46 ± 0.16, and 0.63 ± 0.22, respectively. The level of cleaved Caspase/β-actin in group II and III were significantly lower than the group I, respectively (**p<0.01, ***p<0.05) In Bcl-2/β-actin, there were no significant difference between group II & III and group I. The IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α levels were evaluated for searching the inflammatory markers. However, the differences between all subgroups were not significant. Conclusions: The rPeC as well as rPoC induce protection against rat hepatic IR injury with downregualtion of Bax and cleaved Caspase-3 expression.

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