Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of HIF1-α in heart and lung tissue died from asphyxia. Methods The rats model of asphyxia death was constructed by hanging, different asphyxia groups and control group sets were made according the postmortem time (0,2,6,24 h), immunohistochemistry and half-quantitative RT-PCR methods were used to investigate expression of HIF1-α and mRNA changes on heart and lung tissue. Results The positive staining of HIF1-α could be observed in the myocardium and lung tissue. Significant differences were found between the groups of asphyxia and their corresponding control group. HIF1-α expression was found in all the asphyxia groups while it was only expressed in the control groups of 2 h, 6 h and 24 h. Nucleic positive staining could be detected in all the asphyxia groups but none was found in the control groups. RT-PCR showed that the expression of mRNA between 0 h asphyxia group and 0 h control group were equal in both cardic muscle and lung, but elevated expression in groups of 2,6,24 h compared to their control groups. Conclusion The nuclear positive staining of HIF1-α in heart and lung can be a special character of suffocation death.

Key words: hypoxia inducible factor1-α, asphyxia, immunohistochemistry, RT-PCR