Overexpression of CXCL14 Alleviates Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury through the Downregulation of PKM2-Mediated Cytokine Production

Figure 3

PKM2 knockdown attenuated VILI with downregulated cytokine productions. RT-PCR (a) and Western blots (b) identified a significant lower pulmonary expression of PKM2 in the MV+Sh-PKM2 group than in the MV group at 48 hours after transfection. Importantly, VILI has been markedly attenuated by PKM2 knockdown. In detail, decreased lung injury index (c) and lower wet/dry ratio (d) have been observed in the MV+Sh-PKM2 group as compared with the MV group. Moreover, proinflammatory cytokines including TNF-α (e), IL-1β (f), and IL-6 (g) were markedly decreased in the MV+Sh-PKM2 group than in the MV group. However, pulmonary expression levels of CXCL14 mRNA (h) and protein (i) remained unchanged after AAV5-Sh-PKM2 or AAV5-Sh-Scram transfections.

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