Establishment of allograft renal transplantation rat model

For allograft renal transplantation rat model, male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats (7-week-old, 250‑300 g) were purchased from the Animal Experimental Center of Zhengzhou University, and kept in homeothermal room under a cycle of 12 h of light and 12 h of darkness with free access to food and water. SD rats were divided into two groups, namely sham group (n = 6) and recipient group (n = 6). There were donor rats, and each recipient rat received a left kidney from a donor rat. Donor rats were intraperitoneally injected with 0.01 mg/kg of atropine (Sinopharm Chemical Regent Co., China), 0.04 mg/kg of buprenorphine (Rongbai biological technology co., China) and 10 mg/kg of diazepam (Sinopharm Chemical Regent Co., China). Fifteen min later, 45 mg/kg pentobarbital was used for anesthetization. In donor rats, the blood vessels and ureter were seperated, and the left kidneys were flushed for homogeneously pale using cold Ringer’s lactate solution (3 ml, Henan Provincial People’s hospital) supplemented with heparin (50 U/ml). The harvested kidneys were kept in cold Ringer’s lactate solution for 3 h at 4°C. Before accepting the donated kidneys, left nephrectomy was performed. Then, end-to-end anastomosis of renal artery, vein and ureter was used for orthotopically implantation of donor kidney into the recipient rat. In the sham group, the abdomens of rats were opened without transplantation, the rest procedures were the same as recipient group. Body temperature of the rats was kept between 35°C and 37°C during surgery.

For renal autotransplantation rat model, the harvested kidney was from itself. The rest procedures were just the similar to allograft renal transplantation.