Fig. 1.

Increased apoptosis as well as PP2A activation and Akt inactivation were observed in liver tissues from donation after brain death (DBD) rabbit model. The samples were harvested at 2 h, 4 h, and 8 h post brain death or 2 h post sham operation. a The amount of apoptotic markers Bcl-2, Caspase-3 and cleaved Caspase 3 were measured by western blots. Left: representative images of western blots. Right: semi-quantitative analysis with β-actin as an internal control. The results were normalized to the Sham 2 h group. b The activities of PP2A and Akt were measured, as described in the “Materials and methods”. The results were normalized to the Sham 2 h group. All data were expressed as the mean ± SEM. n = 10 for each group. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ****p < 0.0001 versus the Sham 2 h group; ^##p < 0.01, and ^####p < 0.0001 versus the DBD 2 h group