Published ahead of print on December 4, 2002, doi:10.1164/rccm.200209-1007OC
Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Volume 167, Number 6, March 2003, 925-932
A more recent version of this article appeared on March 15, 2003
Submitted on September 11, 2002
Accepted on November 27, 2002
BLEOMYCIN-INDUCED PULMONARY FIBROSIS IS ATTENUATED IN GAMMA-GLUTAMYL TRANSPEPTIDASE-DEFICIENT MICE
Annie Pardo1, Victor Ruiz2, Jose Luis Arreola2, Remedios Ramirez1, Jose Cisneros-Lira3, Miguel Gaxiola2, Roberto Barrios4, Kala V Subbarao4, Michael W Lieberman4, and Moises Selman2*
1 Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico, DF, Mexico,
2 Unidad de Investigacion, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Mexico, DF, Mexico,
3 Unidad de Investigacion, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Mexico, DF, Mexico; Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico, DF, Mexico,
4 Department of Pathology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mselman{at}sni.conacyt.mx.
To investigate repair mechanisms in bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis, we used mice deficient in glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT-/-), a key enzyme in GSH and cysteine metabolism. Seventy-two hours after bleomycin (0.03 U/g), GGT-/- mice displayed a different inflammatory response to wild-type as judged by a near absence of neutrophils in lung tissue and bronchoalveolar lavage and a less-pronounced rise in MMP-9. Inflammation in GGT-/- consisted mainly of lymphocytes and macrophages. At one month, lungs from bleomycin-treated GGT-/- exhibited minimal areas of fibrosis compared to wild-type (light microscopy fibrosis index: 510±756 versus 1975±817, p<0.01). Lung collagen content revealed a significant increase in bleomycin-treated wild-type (15.1±3.8 versus 8.5±0.7 µg OH-proline/mg dry weight; p<0.01), but not in GGT-/- (10.4±1.7 versus 8.8±0.8). Control lungs from GGT-/- showed a significant reduction of cysteine (0.03±0.005 versus 0.055±0.001, P<0.02) and GSH levels (1.24±0.055 versus 1.79±0.065, P<0.002). These values decreased after 72h of bleomycin in both GGT-/- and wild-type but reached their respective control values after one month. Supplementation with N-acetyl cysteine partially ameliorated the effects of GGT-deficiency. These findings suggest that increased neutrophils and MMP-9 during the early inflammatory response and adequate thiol reserves are key elements in the fibrotic response following bleomycin-induced pulmonary injury.
Key words: GSH, MMP-9, neutrophils, cysteine
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