Ulinastatin attenuates lung ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats by inhibiting tumor necrosis factor alpha.
Ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury may influence graft function following transplantation. Ulinastatin, a urinary trypsin inhibitor has been shown to attenuate I/R injury in various organs such as intestine, heart, and kidney in animals. The present experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of pretreatment with ulinastatin on I/R-induced lung injury.


METHODS
After establishing a constant left lung warm ischemia-reperfusion model in rats, 45 animals were randomly divided into three experimental groups: sham group (n = 15), IR group (n = 15), and ulinastatin (5000 U/kg pre-ischemia) + IR group (n = 15). The lung injury was evaluated by tissue myeloperoxidase activity, with simultaneous estimation of the serum concentration of TNFalpha.


RESULTS
The ulinastatin-pretreated animals exhibited markedly decreased lung tissue myeloperoxidase activity (P < .05). Blood gas analysis demonstrated, that the treated animals had significantly ameliorated pulmonary oxygenation (P < .05). The serum concentration of TNF-alpha in the ulinastatin-pretreated group was markedly decreased compared with that of the I/R group (P < .05).


CONCLUSIONS
Ulinastatin attenuated I/R-induced lung injury. This function is partly related to the capacity of the agent to inhibit myeloperoxidase activity in lung tissue and decrease systemic expression to TNF-alpha.
Ren
B
B
Jinling Hospital, Clinical Medicine School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. robbishren@yahoo.com.cn
Wu
H
H
Zhu
J
J
Li
D
D
Shen
Y
Y
Ying
R
R
Dong
G
G
Jing
H
H
D000818:Animals; D001784:Blood Gas Analysis; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006023:Glycoproteins / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D011652:Pulmonary Circulation; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015427:Reperfusion Injury / Q000097:blood / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014361:Trypsin Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors*
D006023:Glycoproteins; D014361:Trypsin Inhibitors; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; C028665:urinastatin