Effects of SDF-1/CXCR4 on Acute Lung Injury Induced by Cardiopulmonary Bypass

Acute lung injury (ALI) is one of the most important complications after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and the complex pathophysiology remains to be resolved incomplete. SDF-1/CXCR4 chemokine axis can chemotactically accumulate inflammatory cell to local tissue and regulate the release of inflammatory factors, and SDF-1 has a strong chemotaxis effect on neutrophils with CXCR4. Since CPB animal model was difficult to establish, there was still no report about the effect of SDF-1/CXCR4 on neutrophil chemotaxis in ALI after CPB. Here, a stable CPB rat model was constructed to clarify the role of SDF-1/CXCR4 axis in the CPB-induced ALI. Real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), Western blot analysis, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to detect the changes of SDF-1 and CXCR4 in lung tissues, blood, bronchoalveolar lavage (BALF), and/or isolated neutrophils. SDF-1/CXCR4 was increased after CPB, both of that were increased in blood; CXCR4 was increased in neutrophils; SDF-1/CXCR4 was also increased in BALF of CPB model. Results indicated that SDF-1/CXCR4 axis played a key role in the process of early ALI after CPB, also showed that lung injury was significantly reduce after blocking SDF-1/CXCR4 axis, suggest that CXCR4 might be a new target for ALI treatment.