Fig 1: Establishment of a rat liver transplantation model and inflammatory cell infiltration in liver grafts. Liver grafts retrieved from Lewis rats were orthotopically transplanted into BN rats or Lewis rats (syngeneic and allogeneic groups respectively). The sham group received only the opening and closing of the abdomen. (A) Representative H&E staining of liver grafts (magnification, ×200). The right panel shows the RAI scores of the three groups. Severe parenchymal necrosis and destruction of bile ducts were present in the allogeneic group compared with the allogeneic and sham groups. (B, C) Serum concentrations of AST and ALT in recipient rats. Serum AST and ALT levels in the allogeneic group were highest among the three groups. (D) CD3+ and CD86+ inflammatory cells in liver grafts measured by IHC (magnification, ×200). The numbers of CD3+ and CD86+ cells per field in liver grafts were counted with Image pro plus and shown in the right panel. Marked infiltration of CD3+ and CD86+ inflammatory cells was observed in the allogeneic group, whereas the allogeneic and sham groups had few CD3+ and CD86+ inflammatory cells. All experiments were performed three times and data are presented as the mean ± SD. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001; ns, not significant.