PMID: 8941558Nov 1, 1996Paper

Urethan anesthesia protects rats against lethal endotoxemia and reduces TNF-alpha release

Journal of Applied Physiology
A KotanidouH E Fessler

Abstract

Urethan is a commonly used animal anesthetic for nonrecovery laboratory surgery. However, urethan has diverse biological effects that may complicate the interpretation of experimental findings. This study examined the effect of urethan on the response to an intravenous bolus of lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 30 mg/kg) in rats. In instrumented rats, urethan (1.2 gm/kg i.p.) completely prevented the fall in arterial pressure immediately after LPS administration but did not prevent late cardiovascular collapse. In uninstrumented rats, urethan also attenuated indexes of organ injury measured 4 h after LPS administration, including mural bowel hemorrhage, hemoconcentration, hypoglycemia, metabolic acidosis, and lung myeloperoxidase activity, a measure of neutrophil sequestration. The peak increase in tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) 90 min after LPS administration was reduced 88% by urethan (2,060 +/- 316 vs. 16,934 +/- 847 pg/ml; P < 0.001). In uninstrumented animals, urethan at 1.2 gm/kg reduced the 90% mortality rate of a lethal dose of LPS to 0-10% when given up to 24 h before LPS administration but did not reduce mortality when given 2 h after LPS. Urethan neither directly bound LPS by Limulus assay nor inhibited LPS-stimulate...Continue Reading

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Adrenergic Receptors: Trafficking

Adrenergic receptor trafficking is an active physiological process where adrenergic receptors are relocated from one region of the cell to another or from one type of cell to another. Discover the latest research on adrenergic receptor trafficking here.