Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 5, 2026

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Induced Lung Injury Model
Published on: October 29, 2014
TGF-beta is a critical mediator of acute lung injury
J F Pittet1, M J Griffiths, T Geiser
1Departments of Anesthesia and Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94110, USA.
Abstract:
We have shown that the integrin alphavbeta6 activates latent TGF-beta in the lungs and skin. We show here that mice lacking this integrin are completely protected from pulmonary edema in a model of bleomycin-induced acute lung injury (ALI). Pharmacologic inhibition of TGF-beta also protected wild-type mice from pulmonary edema induced by bleomycin or Escherichia coli endotoxin. TGF-beta directly increased alveolar epithelial permeability in vitro by a mechanism that involved depletion of intracellular glutathione. These data suggest that integrin-mediated local activation of TGF-beta is critical to the development of pulmonary edema in ALI and that blocking TGF-beta or its activation could be effective treatments for this currently untreatable disorder.
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