Abstract
Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) reduce acute lung injury in animals challenged by bleomycin or bacterial lipopolysaccaride. It is not known, however, whether MSCs protect from ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI).
This study investigated whether MSCs have a potential role in preventing or modulating VILI in healthy rats subjected to high-volume ventilation.
24 Sprague–Dawley rats (250–300 g) were subjected to high-volume mechanical ventilation (25 mL·kg−1). MSCs (5×106) were intravenously or intratracheally administered (n=8 each) 30 min before starting over-ventilation and eight rats were MSC-untreated. Spontaneously breathing anesthetised rats (n=8) served as controls. After 3 h of over-ventilation or control the animals were sacrificed and lung tissue and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were sampled for further analysis.
When compared with controls, MSC-untreated over-ventilated rats exhibited typical VILI features. Lung oedema, histological lung injury index, concentrations of total protein, interleukin-1β, macrophage inflammatory protein-2 and number of neutrophils in BALF and vascular cell adhesion protein-1 in lung tissue significantly increased in over-ventilated rats. All these indices of VILI moved significantly towards normalisation in the rats treated with MSCs, whether intravenously or intratracheally. Both local and systemic pre-treatment with MSCs reduced VILI in a rat model.
- Acute lung injury
- cell therapy
- injurious ventilation
- lung inflammation
- lung oedema
- mechanical ventilation
Footnotes
Support Statement
This research was supported in part by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (SAF2008-02991 and PI081908). L. Chimenti is the recipient of a European Respiratory Society and Marie Curie Joint Research Fellowship (MC 1636-2010). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Respiratory Society and the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007- 2013 – Marie Curie Actions under grant agreement RESPIRE, PCOFUND-GA-2008-229571.
Statement of Interest
None declared.
- Received September 6, 2011.
- Accepted February 14, 2012.
- ©ERS 2012