The Journal of surgical research
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Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a degenerative disease of the abdominal aorta leading to progressive dilatation, intra-luminal thrombus (ILT) formation, and rupture. Understanding the natural history of AAA is essential, because different processes and, therefore, different biomarkers, could be involved at each stage of disease progression. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between systemic expression of biomarkers of inflammation and extracellular matrix remodeling and aneurysm size in AAA patients. ⋯ Different aneurysm sizes showed different expression pattern of HDL, IgG, and hsCRP. These biomarkers may be useful in predicting AAA progression.
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In a previous study, we proposed a new therapy using topical bromelain as a supplement to simple wound-track incision for the debridement of firearm wounds. This enzymatic debridement greatly simplified the management of high-velocity gunshot wounds in a pig model, and bromelain was confirmed to improve wound healing. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of bromelain on the microenvironment of firearm wounds. ⋯ Enzymatic debridement using topical bromelain in incised wound tracks accelerates the recovery of blood perfusion, pO(2) in wound tissue, controls the expression of TNF-α and raises the expression of TGF-β.
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Sepsis remains a major clinical challenge in intensive care units. The difficulty in developing new and more effective treatments for sepsis exemplifies our incomplete understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of it. One of the more widely used rodent models for studying polymicrobial sepsis is cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). While a number of CLP studies investigated the ensuing systemic inflammatory response, they usually focus on a single time point post-CLP and therefore fail to describe the dynamics of the response. Furthermore, previous studies mostly use surgery without infection (herein referred to as sham CLP, SCLP) as a control for the CLP model, however, SCLP represents an aseptic injurious event that also stimulates a systemic inflammatory response. Thus, there is a need to better understand the dynamics and expression patterns of both injury- and sepsis-induced gene expression alterations to identify potential regulatory targets. In this direction, we characterized the response of the liver within the first 24 h in a rat model of SCLP and CLP using a time series of microarray gene expression data. ⋯ By using microarrays to assess multiple genes in a high throughput manner, we demonstrate that an inflammatory response involving different dynamics and different genes is triggered by SCLP and CLP. From our analysis of the CLP data, the key characteristics of sepsis are a proinflammatory response, which drives hypermetabolism, immune cell activation, and damage from oxidative stress. This contrasts with SCLP, which triggers a modified inflammatory response leading to no immune cell activation, decreased detoxification potential, and hyper metabolism. Many of the identified transcription factors that drive the CLP-induced response are not found in the SCLP group, suggesting that SCLP and CLP induce different types of inflammatory responses via different regulatory pathways.
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Severe trauma, including burns, triggers a systemic response that significantly impacts on the liver, which plays a key role in the metabolic and immune responses aimed at restoring homeostasis. While many of these changes are likely regulated at the gene expression level, there is a need to better understand the dynamics and expression patterns of burn injury-induced genes in order to identify potential regulatory targets in the liver. Herein we characterized the response within the first 24 h in a standard animal model of burn injury using a time series of microarray gene expression data. ⋯ Simultaneous analysis and comparison of gene expression profiles for both burn and sham control groups provided a more accurate estimation of the activation time, expression patterns, and characteristics of a certain burn-induced response based on which the cause-effect relationships among responses were revealed.
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This experimental study aimed to investigate the antioxidant effects of propofol anesthesia at induction doses in a rat skeletal muscle ischemia/reperfusion injury model. ⋯ Propofol anesthesia seems to enhance the antioxidant capacity against tourniquet induced ischemia-reperfusion injury.