Critical role of mitochondrial oxidative stress in acid aspiration induced ALI in mice

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a pulmonary inflammatory disorder which causes significant mortality in critically ill patients. Intracellular oxidative stress has been considered to be the major component in the pathogenesis of ALI but exact source of intracellular ROS is not clearly known. The present study has been designed to elucidate the role of NADPH oxidase system and/or mitochondrial oxidative stress and its downstream pathway NLRP3 inflammasomes in mouse model of acid aspiration mediated ALI. Our data showed that acid aspiration induced lung inflammation was associated with enhanced oxidative stress as evident by data on MDA levels, nitrite levels and redox imbalance. Further acid aspiration resulted in elevation of expression of NADPH oxidase subunits (gp91 phox/p22 phox/p67 phox) as well as mitochondrial oxidative stress as reflected by aconitase activity, mitochondrial ROS levels. Interestingly, NADPH oxidase inhibitor, apocynin did not alter lung inflammation upon HCl instillation. Conversely, mitochondrial antioxidant mito-tempo resulted in significant amelioration of lung inflammation as indicated by suppression of pulmonary neutrophils and inflammatory cytokines namely IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6 in BALF. Analysis of mitochondrial enzymes aconitase/mitochondrial ROS/Mn-SOD confirmed that reduction in lung inflammation by mito-tempo was associated with normalization of oxidative stress in mitochondria. Further, mito-tempo administration blunted phosphorylation of p65- NF-κB at Ser 536. Finally, mito-tempo downregulated HCl-induced NF-κB-dependent pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6) drastically at mRNA levels. Overall, our data support that mitochondrial oxidative stress is crucial in modulating the HCl induced lung inflammation and identifies mitochondrial-targeted antioxidant as a potential therapeutic agent.