TorPause: Efficient Static Organ Preservation for Transplants
- 1ISCBRM, Stanford University School of Medicine
Abstract
Transplantation is limited by how long organs survive outside the body. Existing preservation methods slow metabolism or sustain physiological support, but neither eliminates ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI), which shortens storage and drives organ discard. Embryonic diapause and hibernation show that mammalian cells retain a latent capacity for reversible metabolic arrest. Screening the PI3K-mTOR axis, we identified a dual inhibitor that pauses embryonic stem cells reversibly at ambient oxygen and holds intact mouse embryos in arrest for 11 days. Combined with a mitochondria-targeted hydrogen sulfide donor, this yields TorPause: a two-component flush pairing metabolic pausing with mitochondrial protection, compatible with existing preservation protocols. In a rat liver transplantation model, TorPause reduced structural injury and improved recipient survival after severe warm ischemic storage, potentially expanding the usable donor pool.
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BibTeX
@misc{bhadury2026torpause,
title = {{TorPause: Efficient Static Organ Preservation for Transplants}},
author = {J. Bhadury and T. Tajima and F. P. Suchy and H. Masaki and J. Zhang and M. Rivera and T. Nishimura and C. T. Charlesworth and C. O. Esquivel and H. Nakauchi},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.08.755167},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.08.755167v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - TorPause: Efficient Static Organ Preservation for Transplants
AU - J. Bhadury
AU - T. Tajima
AU - F. P. Suchy
AU - H. Masaki
AU - J. Zhang
AU - M. Rivera
AU - T. Nishimura
AU - C. T. Charlesworth
AU - C. O. Esquivel
AU - H. Nakauchi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.08.755167
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.08.755167v1
AB - Transplantation is limited by how long organs survive outside the body. Existing preservation methods slow metabolism or sustain physiological support, but neither eliminates ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI), which shortens storage and drives organ discard. Embryonic diapause and hibernation show that mammalian cells retain a latent capacity for reversible metabolic arrest. Screening the PI3K-mTOR axis, we identified a dual inhibitor that pauses embryonic stem cells reversibly at ambient oxygen and holds intact mouse embryos in arrest for 11 days. Combined with a mitochondria-targeted hydrogen sulfide donor, this yields TorPause: a two-component flush pairing metabolic pausing with mitochondrial protection, compatible with existing preservation protocols. In a rat liver transplantation model, TorPause reduced structural injury and improved recipient survival after severe warm ischemic storage, potentially expanding the usable donor pool.
ER -