Transport stress causes damage in rats' liver and triggers liver autophagy

Transport stress would do great economic damage to animal husbandry. To discover the mechanism of this problem, this study aims to explore the damage and the autophagy level after transport stress in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats' liver. Our previous work has successfully built a stable transport stress model. This study repeated transport stress rats model; detected body weight, rectal temperature and Serum biochemical indexes. The resultsshowed significantly difference between stress group (SG) and control group (CG), suggested the model was successfully built. Histological observation showed that the rat's liver in SG was obviously damaged. Autophagy-related indicator LC3 was evaluated by immunohistochemistry test, and was accumulated within the central vein of liver where autophagy was triggered. RT-PCR analysis of gene expression during transport stress showed that the mRNA level of mTOR, Beclin-1 and LC3 were significantly decreased. These results suggested that transport stress induced systemic reaction in rats, caused liver damage, and triggered autophagy. The mechanism of this autophagy process may be regulated by the low expression of mTOR instead of Beclin-1. This study is the first demonstration of autophagy in liver in transport stress. It lays the theoretical foundation for the future research and new drugs development.