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RORγt+IL-17+ neutrophils play a critical role in hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury Free
Zhongming Tan1,2,3,†, Runqiu Jiang1,†, Xuehao Wang1, Youjing Wang1, Ling Lu1,4, Qianghui Liu1, Song Guo Zheng4, Beicheng Sun1,*, and Bernhard Ryffel2,3,*
1Key Laboratory of Living Donor Liver Transplantation, Ministry of Public Health and Liver Transplantation Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, China
2Laboratory of Molecular and Experimental Immunology and Neurogenetics, UMR 7355, CNRS-University of Orleans, Orleans 45071, France
3IIDMM, University Cape Town, Cape Town 7925, South Africa
4Division of Rheumatology and Immunology, Department of Medicine University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA *Correspondence to:Beicheng Sun, E-mail: sunbc@njmu.edu.cn; Bernhard Ryffel, E-mail: bryffel@cnrs-orleans.fr
J Mol Cell Biol, Volume 5, Issue 2, April 2013, 143-146,  https://doi.org/10.1093/jmcb/mjs065

Hepatic ischemia–reperfusion (I/R) injury is a significant medical emergency occurring upon trauma, hepatic surgery, and hemorrhagic shock which leads to acute liver failure, remote organ damage and may limit both liver transplantation and partial hepatectomy surgery. The release of inflammatory mediators is the consequence of ischemia/hypoxia and reperfusion-mediated hepatic injury. Upon severe I/R injury, endogenous danger signals activate the inflammasome complex recruiting caspase-1 cleaving pro-interleukin (IL)-1β into its mature form (Besnard et al., 2012). Upon the IL-1R/Toll-like receptor (TLR) activation and phosphorylation of IκB, NF-κB translocates into the nucleus, and initiates gene expression of IL-23, IL-6, IL-1β, and TGF-β (Llacuna et al., 2009). These mediators together with IL-1β favor the differentiation of IL-17A-producing (Th17) cells expressing IL-23 receptors allowing their expansion by IL-23 produced by innate immune cells (Bettelli et al., 2008). The inflammatory cytokines IL-1 and IL-17A are induced upon organ I/R injury, but their roles in hepatic I/R are elusive. We revisited the role of IL-1 and IL-17A using a model of hepatic I/R injury with 1 h partial ischemia (70%) followed by 6 h reperfusion resulting in hepatic damage.