Abstract
Rats of Jcl : Wistar TGN (ARGHGEN) 1 Nts strain (Mini rats) are transgenic animals in which the expression of growth hormone (GH) gene is suppressed by the presence of an antisense transgene. In the present study, we examined hepatocyte regeneration after 2/3 partial hepatectomy (PH) in male Mini rats, using Wistar rats as controls. As a result, the restoration rate of liver weight was similar between the 2 strains, though bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU)- and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA)-labeling indices (LIs) of hepatocytes were generally higher in Wistar rats than in Mini rats at 1 day after PH. At 2 days, on the contrary to BrdU-LI, PCNA-LI was higher in Mini rats than in Wistar rats, and the difference in the total PCNA-LIs at 1 and 2 days between the 2 strains was not so large. This suggests that hepatocyte proliferation may start more slowly in Mini rats than in Wistar rats but the total proliferation rate during the regenerating process may not be significantly different between the 2 strains as a whole.
