【Objective】 Ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury is still inevitable for lung transplantation and ischemic postconditioning (I-postC) may benefit the function of a grafted lung. We investigated the influence of I-postC on expression of the apoptosis gene of canine donor lungs and observed the histomorphological changes under optical microscope. 【Methods】 Single left-lung orthotopic transplantation (LTx) was performed on 12 pairs of donor-and-recipient matched Beagle dogs. They were randomly subjected into an ischemic postconditioning (I-postC) group (n = 6) or a control group (n = 6). The transplantation procedure in control group was performed routinely

while I-postC protocol was added in the early stage of reperfusion for the experimental group: 10 seconds of reperfusion followed by 10 seconds of blockade

repeated three times. Expression of apoptosis gene Bcl-2 and Bax were measured by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Pathological changes of the donor lung were observed under an optical microscope. 【Results】 Compared with the experimental group

expression of Bcl-2 protein was up-regulated while expression of Bax protein was down-regulated. Observed under optical microscope

pulmonary inflammatory reaction was more moderate in I-postC group. 【Conclusions】 I-postC can attenuate the damage of ischemia-reperfusion injury. I-postC may affect the endogenous pathway of apoptosis by inhibiting expression of Bax and enhancing expression of Bcl-2.