Fig 2 shows that free hemoglobin and free heme were higher 4 h after resuscitation with stored RBCs compared to fresh RBCs (n = 3±7 as indicated); NTBI level was also higher, but this difference did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.07).
Furthermore, free heme also induced extracellular release of HMGB1 from RMVECs compared to vehicle control (Fig 5B).
Consistent with our previous studies [25,36], free oxyHb, metHb, and heme levels were increased after 14 d of RBC storage, being 930 ± 125 μM, 40.3 ± 8.8 μM, and 168 ± 44.7 μM, respectively (mean ± SEM, n = 7).
These data indicate that the increased severity of bacterial lung injury secondary to massive resuscitation with stored RBCs is heme-dependent.
In summary, these results indicate that heme from resuscitation with stored RBCs increases extracellular release of HMGB1, which inhibits macrophage phagocytosis of P. aeruginosa, leading to increased mortality.
However, mortality significantly increased in mice resuscitated with stored RBCs (median survival 8 h, n = 9), with all mice dying within 20 h of PAK instillation (Fig 1C).
Pulmonary edema approximately doubled (Fig 1D), and lung bacterial CFUs significantly increased (Fig 1E) in mice resuscitated with stored RBCs compared to those that received fresh RBCs.
TH and resuscitation with stored compared to fresh RBCs not only caused increased mortality but also significantly increased the severity of pulmonary edema induced by P. aeruginosa pneumonia (Fig 1D).
Fig 5A shows that extracellular serum levels of HMGB1 were approximately 5-fold higher in mice (n = 3) resuscitated with stored RBCs compared to mice resuscitated fresh RBCs.
Our findings using a mouse model of trauma and hemorrhagic shock with stored blood transfusion and subsequent PAK instillation demonstrate that transfusion with older stored RBCs increases the severity of bacterial pneumonia.
Hemopexin improved post-pneumonia survival in mice that underwent massive resuscitation with stored RBCs (Fig 3A).
These data demonstrate that TLR4 signaling plays a role in heme-induced exacerbation of lung bacterial infection secondary to TH followed by massive resuscitation with stored RBCs.
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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.