Heme oxygenase-1 gene delivery by Sleeping Beauty inhibits vascular stasis in a murine model of sickle cell disease.

Increases in heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and administration of heme degradation products CO and biliverdin inhibit vascular inflammation and vasoocclusion in mouse models of sickle cell disease (SCD). In this study, an albumin (alb) promoter-driven Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposase plasmid with a wild-type rat hmox-1 (wt-HO-1) transposable element was delivered by hydrodynamic tail vein injections to SCD mice. Eight weeks after injection, SCD mice had three- to five-fold increases in HO-1 activity and protein expression in liver, similar to hemin-treated mice. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated increased perinuclear HO-1 staining in hepatocytes. Messenger RNA transcription of the hmox-1 transgene in liver was confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (qRT-PCR RFLP) with no detectible transgene expression in other organs. The livers of all HO-1 overexpressing mice had activation of nuclear phospho-p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phospho-Akt, decreased nuclear expression of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappaB) p65, and decreased soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) in serum. Hypoxia-induced stasis, a characteristic of SCD, but not normal mice, was inhibited in dorsal skin fold chambers in wt-HO-1 SCD mice despite the absence of hmox-1 transgene expression in the skin suggesting distal effects of HO activity on the vasculature. No protective effects were seen in SCD mice injected with nonsense (ns-) rat hmox-1 that encodes carboxy-truncated HO-1 with little or no enzyme activity. We speculate that HO-1 gene delivery to the liver is beneficial in SCD mice by degrading pro-oxidative heme, releasing anti-inflammatory heme degradation products CO and biliverdin/bilirubin into circulation, activating cytoprotective pathways and inhibiting vascular stasis at sites distal to transgene expression.

The HDAC inhibitors trichostatin A and suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid exhibit multiple modalities of benefit for the vascular pathobiology of sickle transgenic mice.

The vascular pathobiology of sickle cell anemia involves inflammation, coagulation, vascular stasis, reperfusion injury, iron-based oxidative biochemistry, deficient nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability, and red cell sickling. These disparate pathobiologies intersect and overlap, so it is probable that multimodality therapy will be necessary for this disease. We have, therefore, tested a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, trichostatin A (TSA), for efficacy in reducing endothelial activation. We found that pulmonary vascular endothelial VCAM-1 and tissue factor (TF) expression (both are indicators of endothelial activation) are powerfully and significantly inhibited by TSA. This is seen both with pretreatment before the inducing stress of hypoxia/reoxygenation (NY1DD sickle transgenic mouse), and upon longer-term therapy after endothelial activation has already occurred (hBERK1 sickle mouse at ambient air). In addition, TSA prevented vascular stasis in sickle mice, it exhibited activity as an iron chelator, and it induced expression of the antisickling hemoglobin, hemoglobin F. Notably, the TSA analog SAHA (suberoylanilide hydroxaminc acid) that is already approved for human clinical use exhibits the same spectrum of biologic effects as TSA. We suggest that SAHA possibly could provide true, multimodality, salubrious effects for prevention and treatment of the chronic vasculopathy of sickle cell anemia.

Inhaled carbon monoxide reduces leukocytosis in a murine model of sickle cell disease.

Carbon monoxide (CO) has anti-inflammatory properties. We previously reported that acute treatments with inhaled CO inhibit vascular inflammation and hypoxia-induced vasoocclusion in sickle cell disease mouse models. Therefore, we hypothesized that chronic CO inhalation would decrease vascular inflammation and organ pathology in a sickle cell disease mouse model. The treatment of sickle cell disease mice with 25 or 250 parts/million inhaled CO for 1 h/day, 3 days/wk for 8-10 wk significantly decreased the total mean white blood cell, neutrophil, and lymphocyte counts in peripheral blood. Eight weeks of 250 parts/million CO treatments reduced staining for myeloid and lymphoid markers in the bone marrow of sickle mice. Bone marrow from treated sickle mice exhibited a significant decrease in colony-forming unit granulocyte-macrophage during colony-forming cell assays. Anti-inflammatory signaling pathways phospho-Akt and phospho-p38 MAPK were markedly increased in CO-treated sickle livers. Importantly, CO-treated sickle mice had a significant reduction in liver parenchymal necrosis, reflecting the anti-inflammatory benefits of CO. We conclude that inhaled CO may be a beneficial anti-inflammatory therapy for sickle cell disease.