RESUMO
Acute lung injury (ALI), during the progression of infectious shock, leads to systemic inflammatory response syndromewith increased pulmonary capillary membrane permeability due to pulmonary inflammation and uncontrolled inflammatoryresponses. It may cause fatality in patients. Here, we evaluated the protective effect of breviscapine on ALI in rats withinfectious shock. Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were assigned into Sham, model [lipopolysaccharide (LPS) group], andbreviscapine treatment groups (LPS + breviscapine group) and weighed. The lung coefficient, and the wet-to-dry weightratio (W/D) and moisture content of lung tissues were calculated. The pathological changes of the lung tissues were detectedusing hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining, and the protein expressions of interleukin-1 beta (IL-1?), IL-6, and tumor necrosisfactor-alpha (TNF-?) were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Western blotting was conducted to measurethe protein expressions of toll-like receptor-9 (TLR-9) and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-?B) (p65). Compared with LPSgroup, breviscapine significantly lowered the lung coefficient and the W/D and moisture content of lung tissues, relieved thepathological changes of lung tissues, reduced the protein expression levels of IL-1?, IL-6, and TNF-?, weakened theactivation of NF-?B (p65) in lung tissues, and repressed the protein expressions of TLR-9 and NF-?B (p65).
RESUMO
In order to investigate the biological function of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)during fibrosis in denervated skeletal muscle,we recruited sciatic nerve injury model of SD rats in which denervated gastrocnemius was isolated for analysis.At different time points after operation,denervated muscle was examined by several methods.Masson trichrome staining showed morphological changes of denervated skeletal muscle.Quantitative RT-PCR detected the rapid increase of TGF-β1 expression at mRNA level after nerve injury.It was found that a peak of TGF-β1 mRNA expression appeared one week post-operation.The expression of collagen Ⅰ (COL Ⅰ ) mRNA was up-regulated in the nerve injury model as well,and reached highest level two weeks post-injury.Immunoblot revealed similar expression pattern of TGF-β1 and COL Ⅰ in denervated muscles at protein level.In addition,we found that the area of the gastrocnemius muscle fiber was decreased gradually along with increased interstitital fibrosis.Interestingly,this pathological change could be prevented,at least partly,by local injection of TGF-β1 antibodies,which could be contributed to the reduced production of COL Ⅰ by inhibiting function of TGF-β1.Taken together,in this study,we demonstrated that the expression of TGF-β1 was increased significantly in denervated skeletal muscle,which might play a crucial role during muscle fibrosis after nerve transection.