Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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It is not well understood whether the process of autophagy is accelerated or blocked in sepsis, and whether it is beneficial or harmful to the immune defense mechanism over a time course during sepsis. Our aim was to determine both the kinetics and the role of autophagy in sepsis. ⋯ All autophagy-related processes are properly activated in the liver in a mouse model of sepsis; autophagy appears to play a protective role in septic animals.
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Galectin-9 ameliorates various inflammatory conditions including autoimmune diseases by regulating T cell and macrophage/dendritic cell (DC) functions. However, the effect of galectin-9 on polymicrobial sepsis has not been assessed. ⋯ These data suggest that galectin-9 exerts therapeutic effects on polymicrobial sepsis, possibly by expanding NKT cells and pDC-like macrophages and by modulating the production of early and late proinflammatory cytokines.
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Previous studies have shown that patients with diabetes mellitus appear to have a lower prevalence of acute lung injury. We assumed that insulin prescribed to patients with diabetes has an anti-inflammatory property and pulmonary administration of insulin might exert beneficial effects much more than intravenous administration. ⋯ The results suggest that insulin attenuates inflammatory responses in the lungs augmented by hyperglycemia in acute lung injury and the insulin's efficacy may be better when administered by aerosol.