American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology
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Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol. · Oct 2009
A critical role for gelsolin in ventilator-induced lung injury.
Mechanical ventilation, an essential life-support modality of patients with acute lung injury (ALI) or the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), exerts its detrimental effects through largely unknown mechanisms. Gelsolin (GSN), an actin-binding protein and a substrate of caspase-3, was recently shown to play a major role in bleomycin- or lipopolysaccharide-induced lung injury. ⋯ GSN fragmentation was shown to be an effector mechanism in VILI-induced apoptosis, while GSN expression was shown to be necessary for efficient neutrophil infiltration, which was found to be a prerequisite for VILI induction in this model. Therefore, intracellular GSN and GSN-mediated responses were shown to be an important player in the pathogenesis of VILI.