Figure 4. Effects of biliverdin on hepatocyte cell death.

A. Representative immunostained liver sections for TUNEL and caspase 3 from liver sections harvested pre-ischemia, immediately post-ischemia and 12 hrs after reperfusion ± BV treatment. B. Quantitation of the number of positive cells in each stained sections as described in the methods. The degree of apoptosis and caspase 3 positivity was quantified by counting the number of positive cells among the total cells present in at least 10 selected fields with a minimum of 500 total positive cells counted. There is a statistically significant difference after 12 hrs of reperfusion *p = 0.01 versus ischemia alone and between biliverdin preconditioned animals after 12 hrs of reperfusion compared to controls (*p = 0.017). Results represent mean ± SD of 10 fields from 3 pigs/group where a total number of cells counted was at least 500. Magnification = 400×, Bar represents 50 µm.