Nitric oxide decreases lung injury after intestinal ischemia

After injury to a primary organ, mediators are released into the circulation and may initiate inflammation of remote organs. We hypothesized that the local production of nitric oxide (NO) may act to limit the spread of inflammation to secondarily targeted organs. In anesthetized rats, 30 min of intestinal ischemia followed by 2 h of reperfusion (I/R) did not increase lung albumin leak. However, after treatment with NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), intestinal I/R led to increased lung leak, suggesting a protective effect of endogenous NO. The site of action of NO appeared to be the lung and not the gut because 1) after treatment with L-NAME, local delivery of NO to the lung by inhalation abolished the increase in intestinal I/R-induced lung leak; 2) L-NAME had no effect on epithelial permeability (51Cr-labeled EDTA clearance) of reperfused small bowel; and 3) after treatment with L-NAME, local delivery of NO to the gut by luminal perfusion did not improve epithelial permeability of reperfused intestines. Furthermore, L-NAME increased, and inhaled NO decreased, the density of lung neutrophils in rats subjected to intestinal I/R, and treatment with the selectin antagonist fucoidan abolished L-NAME-induced lung leak in rats subjected to intestinal I/R. We conclude that endogenous lung NO limits secondary lung injury after intestinal I/R by decreasing pulmonary neutrophil retention.