Preventive effect on endothelial surface layer damage of Fusu agent in LPS-induced acute lung injury in rats

Abstract

Acute lung injury (ALI) is one of major causes of morbidity and mortality in intensive care. In pathophysiological events of ALI, endothelial surface layer (ESL) injury can result in capillary leakage as the initial event. The "Fusu agent", a traditional Chinese medicine, can inhibit inflammatory factors, attenuate lung capillary leak as seen in our previous study. This study was aimed to explore the molecular mechanism of Fusu agent treatment with ALI. Consistent with previous studies, we found that Fusu agent has the protective effect on LPS-induced ALI model rats. Further investigation demonstrated that heparanase activation is necessary for the LPS-induced ALI model to aggravate ESL loss. Fusu agent can inhibit heparanase activation and heparan sulfate proteoglycans' (HSPGs) degradation to mitigate the ESL injury. Furthermore, TNF-α and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) were significantly reduced upon Fusu agent pre-treatment to inhibit inflammatory cell influx and neutrophil adhesion in ALI. These findings shed light on the pharmacologic basis for the clinical application of traditional Chinese medicine in treating ALI.

Effects of Fusu mixture (Wen-Shen-Qian-Yang Method) on sepsis-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome

“…Through animal experiments, it was confirmed that the TCM resuscitation mixture could improve the pathological changes of lung tissue in rats, inhibit the expression of heparanase in the plasma of acute lung injury caused by sepsis, and reduce the release of inflammatory factors. This shows that the Fusu mixture has a certain effect on sepsis-induced ARDS, [ 7 ] which provides basic evidence for the clinical treatment of the Fusu mixture.…”