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

Figure 4

Overexpression of PKM2 abolished the protective effects of CXCL14 against VILI. RT-PCR (a) and Western blots (b) identified an overexpression of PKM2 in injured lungs at 48 hours after transfection. Importantly, the protective effects of CXCL14 against VILI had been markedly diminished by PKM2 overexpression. In detail, increased expressions of proinflammatory cytokines including TNF-α (c), IL-1β (d), and IL-6 (e), worsened morphology (f), increased lung injury index (g), and higher wet/dry ratio (h) has been observed in the CXCL14-Tg+PKM2 group as compared with the CXCL14-Tg+MV group. However, no significant differences in CXCL14 mRNA (i) expressions have been found between the CXCL14-Tg+MV and CXCL14-Tg+PKM2+MV groups.

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