Swapan K. Bose

THE TOXICITY OF HIGH-DOSE SUPEROXIDE DISMUTASE SUGGESTS THAT SUPEROXIDE CAN BOTH INITIATE AND TERMINATE LIPID PEROXIDATION IN THE REPERFUSED HEART

Recently, we described an anomalous bell-shaped dose-response curve for the protection of the reoxygenated isolated myocardium by superoxide dismutase (SOD). SOD is dramatically protective up to a point (5 micrograms/ml in the perfusate) beyond which it loses its ability to protect and, at very high doses (50 micrograms/ml), exacerbates the injury. We proposed that O2-. may serve as both initiator and terminator of lipid peroxidation, such that over scavenging the radical may increase net lipid peroxidation via increased chain length. We examined the ability of U74389F, a lipid peroxidation inhibitor, to ameliorate the toxicity of high-dose SOD in the isolated perfused rabbit heart preparation. The results show a significant improvement in the percent recovery of developed tension of hearts treated with U74389F and overdosed with MnSOD, as well as a decrease in thiobarbituric acid reactive substances.

Antiinflammatory activity of tissue plasminogen activator in the carrageenan rat footpad model.

Exogenous plasminogen activators (PAs), such as streptokinase (SK) and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), have been shown to significantly improve the mortality of patients with acute myocardial infarction. However, reperfusion of the myocardium is associated with neutrophil activation and infiltration into the infarct region. Plasminogen activators influence neutrophil function in vitro, but no data exists regarding the effect of exogenous PAs on inflammation in vivo. Therefore, we evaluated the effect of PAs on inflammation using the carrageenan-induced rat footpad inflammation model. The magnitude of carrageenan-induced inflammation was determined by water-displacement and neutrophil infiltration, following administration of either tPA or SK to Sprague-Dawley rats. tPA (12 mg/kg) inhibited carrageenan-induced inflammation (p < .01). In contrast, administration of SK (40,000 U/kg) enhanced inflammation. These results suggest that exogenous PAs influence the inflammatory process but specific PAs differ in their actions. Ultimately, these differences may influence the efficacy of these agents in the management of acute myocardial infarction and lead to further evaluation of tPA in other inflammatory diseases such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), in which neutrophil-mediated injury is likely.