Faculty Collaboration Database

Pulmonary inflammation after ethanol exposure and burn injury is attenuated in the absence of IL-6. Alcohol 2013 May;47(3):223-9

Date

03/07/2013

Pubmed ID

23462222

Pubmed Central ID

PMC3617054

DOI

10.1016/j.alcohol.2013.01.004

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84878015551 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   26 Citations

Abstract

Alcohol consumption leads to an exaggerated inflammatory response after burn injury. Elevated levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) in patients are associated with increased morbidity and mortality after injury, and high systemic and pulmonary levels of IL-6 have been observed after the combined insult of ethanol exposure and burn injury. To further investigate the role of IL-6 in the pulmonary inflammatory response, we examined leukocyte infiltration and cytokine and chemokine production in the lungs of wild-type and IL-6 knockout mice given vehicle or ethanol (1.11 g/kg) and subjected to a sham or 15% total body surface area burn injury. Levels of neutrophil infiltration and neutrophil chemoattractants were increased to a similar extent in wild-type and IL-6 knockout mice 24 h after burn injury. When ethanol exposure preceded the burn injury, however, a further increase of these inflammatory markers was seen only in the wild-type mice. Additionally, signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 (STAT3) phosphorylation did not increase in response to ethanol exposure in the IL-6 knockout mice, in contrast to their wild-type counterparts. Visual and imaging analysis of alveolar wall thickness supported these findings and similar results were obtained by blocking IL-6 with antibody. Taken together, our data suggest a causal relationship between IL-6 and the excessive pulmonary inflammation observed after the combined insult of ethanol and burn injury.

Author List

Chen MM, Bird MD, Zahs A, Deburghgraeve C, Posnik B, Davis CS, Kovacs EJ

Author

Christopher Stephen Davis MD, MPH Associate Professor in the Surgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Alcohol Drinking
Animals
Burns
Ethanol
Interleukin-6
Lung
Male
Mice
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Mice, Knockout
Pneumonia