Antioxidant role of heme oxygenase-1 in prehepatic portal hypertensive rats

Table 1 Effect of different treatments on portal pressure (mean ± SE)

Treatment	Portal pressure (PP)
	(mmHg)
Sham	7.9 ± 0.6b
PPVL	14.4 ± 1.9
Sham + bilirubin	7.6 ± 0.9b
Sham + Sn-PPIX +	7.3 ± 0.7b
PPVL + Bilirubin	14.0 ± 1.8
PPVL + Sn-PPIX	13.8 ± 1.6

^bP < 0.001 between sham groups and PPVL, PPVL + Bilirubin and PPVL + Sn-PPIX groups, according to Neuman-Keuls' test.

Table 2 Effect of PPVL and bilirubin on antioxidant enzyme activities (mean ± SE)

Group	Catalase (pmol/mg protein)	Total superoxidedismutase (U/mg protein)1	Glutathione peroxidase (U/mg protein)2
Sham	10.5 ± 1.1a	9.0 ± 0.2b	0.129 ± 0.004a
PPVL	6.5 ± 0.5	4.5 ± 0.1	0.100 ± 0.004
Sham + Bilirubin	10.7 ± 0.9a	9.3 ± 0.1b	0.132 ± 0.006a
PPVL + Bilirubin	9.4 ± 0.9a	8.9 ± 0.2b	0.131 ± 0.004a

Enzymatic activities were assayed as described in the text.

¹ One unit of SOD activity is defined as the amount of enzyme required to inhibit 50% of the epinephrine autooxidation.

² One unit of the enzyme represents the decrease of 1 mmol of NADPH/min under the assay conditions.

^aP < 0.05 between Catalase and Glutathione Peroxidase of Sham groups, PPVL + Bilirubin and PPVL group,

^bP < 0.01 between Superoxide Dismutase of group of Sham groups, PPVL + Bilirubin and PPVL group and PPVL group according to Neuman-Keuls' test.

Table 3 Effect of Sn-PPIX administration on the HO-1 induction and on TBARS and GSH contents in PPVL rat livers (mean ± SE)

Treatment	HO-1	TBARS	GSH content
	(U/mg protein)1	(nmol/min per mgprotein)	(μmol/g liver)
Sham	0.50 ± 0.01b	0.10 ± 0.01d	7.5 ± 0.2d
PPVL	0.90 ± 0.02	0.25 ± 0.01	3.7 ± 0.1
Sham + Sn-PPIX	0.25 ± 0.01	0.11 ± 0.01d	7.2 ± 0.3d
PPVL + Sn-PPIX	0.48 ± 0.04	0.32 ± 0.02	2.3 ± 0.2

Sn-PPIX was administered as described in Materials and Methods. Sham animals were injected with saline solution. Enzymatic activity was assayed as described in the text.

¹ One unit of the enzyme forms 1 nmol of bilirubin/30 min under assay conditions. Different letters within columns indicate significant differences according to Neuman-Keuls' test. Differences in HO-1 were of

^bP < 0.01 between Sham group and PPVL, Sham + Sn-PPIX groups. Differences in TBARS and in GSH content were of

^dP < 0.01 between Sham groups and PPVL groups.

Table 4 Effect of different treatments on vasodilatation of hepatic sinusoids (mean ± SE)

Treatment	Sinusoidal area
Sham (n = 258)	3.64 ± 0.08
PPVL (n = 245)	4.20 ± 0.02b
Sham + Sn-PPIX (n = 257)	3.45 ± 0.01
PPVL + Sn-PPIX (n = 249)	3.48 ± 0.04

The selected area for quantification was measured as pixels per area (square inch). The area standard used was 8.33 square inch.

^bP < 0.01 between PPVL and the other three groups, according to Neuman-Keuls' test.