Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Vol 151, No. 3, 03 1995, 780-784.
The early pattern of conjugated dienes in liver and lung after endotoxin exposure
NC Clements Jr and MP Habib
Department of Internal Medicine, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Tucson, Arizona.
If lipid peroxidation (LP) contributes to organ dysfunction in sepsis
rather than simply reflecting established injury, it should occur soon
after the onset of the septic insult, and it may not progress uniformly in
all organs. We assessed whether LP occurs within 90 min after onset of
continuous intravenous endotoxin (E. coli 055:B5) infusion in rats, using
second-derivative spectroscopy to semiquantitatively assess conjugated
dienes (CD) in lung, liver, and plasma phospholipids. Measurements were
also made after 90-min infusions with saline or 1 mM H2O2. Both the
quantity and spectrophotometric patterns of CD differed between the three
groups. Compared with saline controls, lung lipid CD increased after both
H2O2 and endotoxin. Venous plasma CD were elevated only after H2O2, while
arterial plasma and liver lipid CD were not different between the three
groups. Exhaled ethane (an indicator of peroxidation of omega-3 fatty
acids) did not differ between groups. Wet- to-dry lung weights were
significantly increased after endotoxin compared with that after saline
controls. Our results indicate that tissue-specific LP occurs within 90 min
of endotoxin or H2O2 intravenous infusion.
