Post-injury multiple organ failure results from an inappropriate, overwhelming immune response to injury. During trauma and hemorrhagic shock (T/HS), mesenteric ischemia causes gut mucosal breakdown with disruption of the intestinal barrier. It has been proposed that this releases the gut microbiota systemically via post-shock mesenteric lymph, engendering infectious complications. Despite extensive investigation, no clear evidence has been presented for gut bacterial translocation after resuscitation from T/HS. However, such previous studies were limited by available technologies. More sensitive methods, such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), have since emerged for detection of bacterial presence and danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). Quantitative PCR was applied to post-shock mesenteric lymph (PSML) derived from a rat model of T/HS. No bacterial presence was detected in a series of 12 samples, whereas multiple lymph samples showed presence of DAMPs after T/HS. Thus, we confirmed that bacterial translocation does not exist in PSML following resuscitation from T/HS-associated mesenteric ischemia. However, T/HS does increase the presence of mitochondrial DAMPs in PSML. These results support our current position that PSML elaborates remote organ injury by multiple inflammatory mechanisms, including lipid-mediated pro-inflammatory stimuli, and by contribution from gut-derived DAMPS.