AIM To investigate the change in intestinal dendriticcell (DC) number in fulminant hepatic failure (FHF).METHODS: An animal model of FHF was created.Intestinal CD11b/c was detected by immunohistochemistryand Western blot. Quantitative real-time polymerase chainreaction (PCR) was used to detect intestinal integrin-αmRNA expression. Intestinal CD83, CD86, CD74, CD3 andAKT were detected by immunohistochemistry, Westernblot and PCR. Phosphorylated-AKT (p-AKT) was detectedby immunohistochemistry and Western blot.RESULTS: In the FHF group [D-galactosamine (D-Galn)+ lipopolysaccharide (LPS) group], the mice beganto die after 6 h; conversely, in the D-Galn and LPSgroups, the activity of mice was poor, but there wereno deaths. Immunohistochemistry results showed thatin FHF, the expression of CD11b/c (7988400 ± 385941vs 1102400 ± 132273, P 〈 0.05), CD83 (13875000± 467493 vs 9257600 ± 400364, P 〈 0.05), CD86(7988400 ± 385941 vs 1102400 ± 13227, P 〈 0.05)and CD74 (11056000 ± 431427 vs 4633400 ± 267903,P 〈 0.05) was significantly increased compared withthe normal saline (NS) group. Compared with the NSgroup, the protein expression of CD11b/c (5.4817 ±0.77 vs 1.4073 ± 0.37, P 〈 0.05) and CD86 (4.2673± 0.69 vs 1.1379 ± 0.42, P 〈 0.05) was significantlyincreased. Itg-α (1.1224 ± 0.3 vs 0.4907 ± 0.19, P〈 0.05), CD83 (3.6986 ± 0.40 vs 1.0762 ± 0.22, P 〈0.05) and CD86 (1.5801 ± 0.32 vs 0.8846 ± 0.10, P 〈0.05) mRNA expression was increased significantly inthe FHF group. At the protein level, expression of CD74in the FHF group (2.3513 ± 0.52) was significantlyincreased compared with the NS group (1.1298 ± 0.33),whereas in the LPS group (2.3891 ± 0.47), the levelof CD74 was the highest (P 〈 0.05). At the gene level,the relative expression of CD74 mRNA in the FHF group(1.5383 ± 0.26) was also significantly increased incomparison to the NS group (0.7648 ± 0.22; P 〈 0.05).CD3 expression was the high