Hepatic 4-hydroxynonenol (4-HNE), a marker of oxidative stress, was significantly lower in the liver microsomes of SSmice 24 hours after infusion of Hp or Hpx compared to vehicle-treated SS-mice (Fig 2G).
CO also inhibited stasis in mice treated with SnPP + Hb without Hp or Hpx.
SnPP and CO had similar inhibitory effects on NF-kB activation in the liver (data not shown).
The beneficial effects of Hp and Hpx were lost by inhibition of HO with SnPP, but could be restored by CO administration.
During hemolysis, hemoglobin and heme released from red blood cells promote oxidative stress, inflammation and thrombosis.
The released heme can activate the innate immune pattern recognition receptor toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) on inflammatory cells, platelets and endothelium, promoting a pro-inflammatory and pro-coagulant phenotype, ultimately leading to vaso-occlusion, ischemia-reperfusion physiology, tissue injury, and pain in murine models of SCD [5, 7±10].
Infusion of exogenous hemoglobin into SS-mice can markedly increase stasis compared to the amount of spontaneous stasis [5].
Plasma haptoglobin and hemopexin levels are often depleted in SCD patients and mice due to chronic intravascular hemolysis [21±24].
Thus a single infusion of Hp or Hpx inhibited stasis for 48h.
Sickle mice co-infused with Hb + Hp, Hb + Hpx or Hb + Hp + Hpx had less stasis 1h after infusion than mice infused with Hb + albumin or Hb (Fig 1B).
Hp and Hpx significantly inhibited stasis in response H/R or LPS (Fig 5).
Compared to Hb alone or Hb + albumin infused animals, sickle mice co-infused with Hb + Hp, Hb + Hpx, or Hb + Hp + Hpx had markedly diminished hepatic NF-κB activation 4h after infusion as evidenced by nuclear NF- κB phospho-p65 levels (Fig 2A).
Immunofluorescence staining of VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 was decreased in the dorsal skin of SS-mice 4h after infusion of Hb+Hp and Hb+Hpx compared to SS-mice infused with vehicle or Hb (Fig 2B and 2C).
Pro-inflammatory cytokine RANTES (chemokine ligand 5 or CCL5), which recruits leukocytes to pro-inflammatory sites, was lower in the plasma of SS-mice 24 hours after infusion of Hp or Hpx compared to vehicle-treated SS-mice (Fig 2F).
In contrast, albumin did not induce HO-1 or inhibit stasis and NF- κB.
We have previously shown that induction of HO-1 expression or liver-directed HO-1 gene therapy inhibits stasis in sickle mice exposed to H/R [38, 45].
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If you find BEL Commons useful in your work, please consider citing: Hoyt, C. T., Domingo-Fernández, D., & Hofmann-Apitius, M. (2018). BEL Commons: an environment for exploration and analysis of networks encoded in Biological Expression Language. Database, 2018(3), 1–11.