Liver damage in bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice

• Published in: Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology 2019-12, Vol.392 (12), p.1503-1513
• Main Authors: Vásquez-Garzón, V. R., Ramírez-Cosmes, A., Reyes-Jiménez, E., Carrasco-Torres, G., Hernández-García, S., Aguilar-Ruiz, S. R., Torres-Aguilar, H., Alpuche, J., Pérez-Campos Mayoral, L., Pina-Canseco, S., Arellanes-Robledo, J., Villa-Treviño, S., Baltiérrez-Hoyos, R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Actins - metabolism; Animals; Antigens, CD1 - metabolism; Autoimmune diseases; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Bleomycin; Cirrhosis; Collagen - metabolism; Disease Models, Animal; Fibrosis; Immunohistochemistry; Inflammation; Ki-67 Antigen - metabolism; Liver; Liver - drug effects; Liver - metabolism; Liver - pathology; Liver cirrhosis; Liver Diseases - etiology; Liver Diseases - metabolism; Liver Diseases - pathology; Lung - drug effects; Lung - pathology; Lung diseases; Male; Mice; Neurosciences; Original Article; Oxidation; Pharmacology/Toxicology; Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen - metabolism; Pulmonary fibrosis; Pulmonary Fibrosis - chemically induced; Pulmonary Fibrosis - complications; Pulmonary Fibrosis - metabolism; Pulmonary Fibrosis - pathology; Scleroderma; Scleroderma, Systemic; Skin - drug effects; Skin - pathology; Systemic sclerosis
• ISSN: 0028-1298; 1432-1912
• DOI: 10.1007/s00210-019-01690-7

Pulmonary fibrosis is an emerging disease with a poor prognosis and high mortality rate that is even surpassing some types of cancer. This disease has been linked to the concomitant appearance of liver cirrhosis. Bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis is a widely used mouse model that mimics the histopathological and biochemical features of human systemic sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that is associated with inflammation and expressed in several corporal systems as fibrosis or other alterations. To determine the effects on proliferation, redox and inflammation protein expression markers were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Analyses showed a significant increase in protein oxidation levels by lipoperoxidation bio-products and in proliferation and inflammation processes. These phenomena were associated with the induction of the redox status in mice subjected to 100 U/kg bleomycin. These findings clearly show that the bleomycin model induces histopathological alterations in the liver and partially reproduces the complexity of systemic sclerosis. Our results using the bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis model provide a protocol to investigate the mechanism underlying the molecular alteration found in the liver linked to systemic sclerosis.