Liver Cold Storage and Transplantation in the Cold-Adaptive Daurian Ground Squirrels

In liver transplantation, the functional recovery of donor grafts following extended cold storage is a major challenge. The same obstacle applies to standard rodent models (e.g., mice and rats) for liver transplantation despite their well-established surgical protocols, thus restricting research on key topics such as post-transplantation functional recovery and host-graft immunocompatibility. Here, we successfully established a novel liver transplantation model using an obligate hibernator, the Daurian ground squirrel (DGS; Spermophilus dauricus), which demonstrates intrinsic adaptation to ultra profound hypothermia-rewarming and ischemia-reperfusion transitions. In our hands, transplantation of liver grafts following 24-h cold storage resulted in 100% survival of DGS recipients within the 7-day observation time frame, whilst the same procedure in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats had 0% survival 24 h following the surgery. Thus, the DGS and other cold-adaptive mammalian models provide a unique and robust platform to investigate mechanisms underlying organ cold adaptation and transplantation tolerance, which can support the development of novel treatment or surgery strategies in the field of transplantation medicine.