The liver has a huge impact on the functioning of our body and the preservation of homeostasis. It is exposed to many serious diseases, which may lead to the chronic failure of this organ, which is becoming a global health problem today. Currently, the final form of treatment in patients with end-stage (acute and chronic) organ failure is
transplantation. The proper function of transplanted organs depends on many cellular processes and immune and individual factors. An enormous role in the process of acceptance or rejection of a transplanted organ is attributed to, among others, the activation of the
complement system. The aim of this study was the evaluation of the concentration of selected
biomarkers'
complement system activation (C3a, C5a, and sC5b-9 (
terminal complement complex)) in the serum of patients before and after
liver transplantation (24 h, two weeks). The study was conducted on a group of 100 patients undergoing
liver transplantation. There were no complications during surgery and no transplant rejection in any of the patients. All patients were discharged home 2-3 weeks after the surgery. The levels of all analyzed components of the
complement system were measured using the ELISA method. Additionally, the correlations of the basic laboratory parameters-
C-reactive protein (CRP),
hemoglobin (Hb), total
bilirubin,
alkaline phosphatase (ALP),
alanine aminotransferase (ALT),
aspartate aminotransferase (AST),
gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (
GGTP), and
albumin-with the parameters of the
complement system (C3a, C5a, and sC5b-9) were determined. In our study, changes in the concentrations of all examined
complement system components before and after
liver transplantation were observed, with the lowest values before
liver transplantation and the highest concentration two weeks after. The direct increase in components of the
complement system (C3a, C5a, and sC5b-9) 24 h after
transplantation likely affects liver damage after
ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI), while their increase two weeks after
transplantation may contribute to transplant tolerance. Increasingly, attention is being paid to the role of C3a and CRP as
biomarkers of damage and failure of various organs. From the point of view of
liver transplantation, the most interesting correlation in our own research was found exactly between CRP and C3a, 24 h after the
transplantation. This study shows that changes in complement activation
biomarkers and the correlation with CRP in blood could be a prognostic signature of liver allograft survival or rejection.