TY - JOUR T1 - Late-breaking abstract: Erythropoietin (EPO) inhibits the immunohistochemical expression of Tumor Necrosis Factor-a (TNF-a) in bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis (PF) in rats JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 44 IS - Suppl 58 SP - P877 AU - Drosos Tsavlis AU - Anna Tzoumaka AU - Anastasia Tektonidou AU - Afroditi Papadopoulou AU - Evaggelia Spandou Y1 - 2014/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P877.abstract N2 - AIM: The cytokine TNF-a is well known to participate in the fibrotic pathway with inflammatory and apoptotic actions.Erythropoietin, on the other hand, is a multiple functional cytokine with anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic properties.Aim of this study was to investigate the role of EPO on the expression of TNF-a in BLM-induced PF in rats.METHODS: Fifty Wistar rats (300gr) were divided into five groups of 10 animals each: 1)control animals, 2)intratracheal (i.t) and intraperitoneal (i.p) injection of saline (0.5ml/kg), 3)BLM hydrochloride (7.5mg/kg) i.t injection, 4)BLM hydrochloride (7.5mg/kg) i.t injection followed by EPO i.p injection (2000 iu/kg), 5)saline (0.5ml/kg) i.t injection followed by EPO i.p injection (2000 iu/kg). All rats were sacrified after 14 days.The expression of TNF-a was immunohistochemically measured and a scale of four grades (A:0-25%, B:25-50%, C:50-75%, D:75-100%) was used to evaluate it.RESULTS: In groups 1,2 and 5 (control groups), TNF-a was expressed only in the two lower grades of the scale (A:80% and B:20%).In group 3, TNF-a was expressed in the high grades (C:30% and D:70%).Finally, in group 4, the cytokine in question was expressed only in the low grades (A:80% and B:20%).The expression of TNF-a took place in the high grades for group 3 (BLM group) and in the lower grades for group 4 (BLM+EPO group) (p<0.001 and p<0.05 respectively).CONCLUSIONS: Treatment with EPO significantly ameliorated the extent and severity of the BLM-induced toxicity in lung tissue.TNF-a had a significantly lower expression in the group of animals which were administrated with EPO, compared with the group of BLM. ER -