BACKGROUND Sepsis remains a major clinical challenge in intensive care units. The difficulty in developing new and more effective treatments for sepsis exemplifies our incomplete understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of it. One of the more widely used rodent models for studying polymicrobial sepsis is cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). While a number of CLP studies investigated the en...

Adipose tissue is an important energy depot and endocrine organ, and the degree of adiposity impacts the host response to infection. However, little is known regarding the mechanisms by which white adipose tissue (WAT) is lost acutely and then restored after the resolution of sepsis. Therefore, the signaling pathways governing protein synthesis, autophagy, apoptosis, and the ubiquitin-proteasom...

BACKGROUND The recent discovery of cell cycle arrest biomarkers, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP)-2 and insulin-like growth factor binding protein 7 (IGFBP7), has led to a newly available clinical test for acute kidney injury. The performance of these markers in preclinical studies has not been established. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the performance of TIMP-2 and IGFBP7 in ra...

The paradigm of systemic inflammatory response syndrome-to-compensatory anti-inflammatory response syndrome transition implies that hyperinflammation triggers acute sepsis mortality, whereas hypoinflammation (release of anti-inflammatory cytokines) in late sepsis induces chronic deaths. However, the exact humoral inflammatory mechanisms attributable to sepsis outcomes remain elusive. In the fir...

BACKGROUND Acute lung injury is characterized by neutrophilic inflammation and increased lung permeability. Thiosulfate is a stable metabolite of hydrogen sulfide, a gaseous mediator that exerts antiinflammatory effects. Although sodium thiosulfate (STS) has been used as an antidote, the effect of STS on acute lung injury is unknown. The authors assessed the effects of STS on mice lung and vasc...

BACKGROUND Sepsis and sepsis-associated organ failure are devastating conditions. Understanding the detailed cellular/molecular mechanisms involved in sepsis should lead to the identification of novel therapeutic targets. METHODS Cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) was used as a polymicrobial sepsis model in vivo to determine mortality and end-organ damage. Macrophages were adopted as the cellu...

Gourine, Alexander V., Karin Rudolph, Johannes Tesfaigzi, and Matthew J. Kluger. Role of hypothalamic interleukin-1b in fever induced by cecal ligation and puncture in rats. Am. J. Physiol. 275 (Regulatory Integrative Comp. Physiol. 44): R754–R761, 1998.—Bacterial endotoxin induces fever by causing the release of interleukin (IL)-1b into the circulation or the brain. IL-1b is believed to mediat...

Endogenous hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) is naturally synthesized in various types of mammalian cells from l-cysteine in a reaction catalyzed by two enzymes, cystathionine-gamma-lyase (CSE) and/or cystathionine-beta-synthase. The latest studies have implied that H(2)S functions as a vasodilator and neurotransmitter. However, so far there is little information about the role played by H(2)S in system...

OBJECTIVE Serum levels of microRNA have been proposed as biomarkers in various inflammatory diseases. However, up to now, their clinical relevance in critical illness and sepsis is unclear. DESIGN Single-center clinical study. SETTING Fourteen-bed medical ICU of the University Hospital Aachen, university laboratory research unit. SUBJECTS AND PATIENTS Experimental sepsis model in C57Bl/6 ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of emodin on aquaporin 5 (AQP5) expression in rats with sepsis-induced acute lung injury. METHODS We divided 60 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats, weighing 200-230 g, into four groups: control, sham surgery, model and emodin groups (n = 15 for each). We created a sepsis model with cecal ligation and puncture; the sham surgery group had their cecums replaced a...