Retinoic acid treatment abrogates elastase-induced pulmonary emphysema in rats.
Pulmonary emphysema is a common disease in which destruction of the lung's gas-exchange structures (alveoli) leads to inadequate oxygenation, disability and frequently death; lung transplantation provides its only remediation. Because treatment of normal rats with all-trans-retinoic acid increases the number of alveoli, we tested whether a similar effect would occur in rats with emphysema. Elastase was instilled into rat lungs, producing changes characteristic of human and experimental emphysema: increased lung volume reflecting a loss of lung elastic recoil, larger but fewer alveoli and diminished volume-corrected alveolar surface area due to destruction of alveolar walls. Treatment with all-trans-retinoic acid reversed these changes providing nonsurgical remediation of emphysema and suggesting the possibility of a similar effect in humans.
Massaro
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GD
Lung Biology Laboratory, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC 20007-2197, USA.
Massaro
D
D
D000818:Animals; D008297:Male; D010196:Pancreatic Elastase; D011650:Pulmonary Alveoli / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000473:pathology; D011656:Pulmonary Emphysema / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D014212:Tretinoin / Q000627:therapeutic use*
D014212:Tretinoin; D010196:Pancreatic Elastase