Complement-mediated Damage to the Glycocalyx Plays a Role in Renal Ischemia-reperfusion Injury in Mice

Complement activation plays an important role in the pathogenesis of renal ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury (IRI), but whether this involves damage to the vasculoprotective endothelial glycocalyx is not clear. We investigated the impact of complement activation on glycocalyx integrity and renal dysfunction in a mouse model of renal IRI.

Right nephrectomized male C57BL/6 mice were subjected to 22 minutes left renal ischemia and sacrificed 24 hours after reperfusion to analyze renal function, complement activation, glycocalyx damage, endothelial cell activation, inflammation, and infiltration of neutrophils and macrophages.

Ischemia-reperfusion induced severe renal injury, manifested by significantly increased serum creatinine and urea, complement activation and deposition, loss of glycocalyx, endothelial activation, inflammation, and innate cell infiltration. Treatment with the anti-C5 antibody BB5.1 protected against IRI as indicated by significantly lower serum creatinine (P = 0.04) and urea (P = 0.003), tissue C3b/c and C9 deposition (both P = 0.004), plasma C3b (P = 0.001) and C5a (P = 0.006), endothelial vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 expression (P = 0.003), glycocalyx shedding (tissue heparan sulfate [P = 0.001], plasma syndecan-1 [P = 0.007], and hyaluronan [P = 0.02]), inflammation (high mobility group box-1 [P = 0.0003]), and tissue neutrophil (P = 0.0009) and macrophage (P = 0.004) infiltration.

Together, our data confirm that the terminal pathway of complement activation plays a key role in renal IRI and demonstrate that the mechanism of injury involves shedding of the glycocalyx.