Unraveling the potential of endothelial progenitor cells as a treatment following ischemic stroke

 

Custodia A, Ouro A, Sargento-Freitas J, Aramburu-Núñez M et al. Front Neurol. 2022 Sep 8;13:940682. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2022.940682. eCollection 2022. PMID: 36158970
Abstract: After stroke and other brain injuries, there is a high incidence of respiratory complications such as pneumonia or acute lung injury. The molecular mechanisms that drive the brain-lung interaction post-stroke have not yet been elucidated. We performed transient middle cerebral artery
occlusion (MCAO) and sham surgery on C57BL/6J mice and collected bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), serum, brain, and lung homogenate samples 24 h after surgery. A 92 proteins-panel developed by Olink Proteomics® was used to analyze the content in BALF and lung homogenates. MCAO animals had higher protein concentration levels in BALF than sham-controls, but these levels did not correlate with the infarct volume. No alteration in alveolar-capillary barrier permeability was observed. A total of 12 and 14 proteins were differentially expressed between the groups (FDR < 0.1) in BALF and lung tissue homogenates, respectively. Of those, HGF, TGF-α, and CCL2 were identified as the most relevant to this study. Their protein expression patterns were verified by ELISA. This study confirmed that post-stroke lung damage was not associated with increased lung permeability or cerebral ischemia severity. Furthermore, the dysregulation of HGF, TGF-α, and CCL2 in BALF and lung tissue after ischemia could play an important role in the molecular mechanisms underlying stroke-induced lung damage.
Funding: This project received funding from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) [PI17/02130,PI21/00939], co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), from the Fundació La Marató de TV3 [201706]. The participating centers take part into RICORS-ICTUS network [RD21/0006/0024, RD21/0006/0007, RD21/0006/0015] from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) [PI17/02130, PI21/00939], co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). The funders had no role in designing or executing this study.