Active Molecular Chitosan alleviate Bleomycin-induced Acute Pulmonary Inflammation in Mice

Abstract

ABSTRACT Generally acute pulmonary inflammation is triggered by damage to alveolar epithelial cells due to the pollutants, viral infection, allergens and toxic substances. The active molecular chitosan (AMC, 5~8 kDa) is known to have non-toxic, bio-degradable, and biological activities including anti-tumor, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory activities. The purpose of this study was to observe AMC’s preclinical efficacy to acute pulmonary inflammation and evaluate the therapeutic effect of a bleomycin (BLM) induced mouse model using AMC, a final product made by the hydrolysis of chitosan. Our experiments were conducted using male C57BL/ 6 mouse and BLM (5 mg/kg) was injected once with the intratracheal instillation (IT) method to induce pulmonary inflammation. Each group was conducted with prednisolone (PDS, 6.5 mg/kg) or AMC (100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg, respectively) for 10 days with oral gavage. The relative lung weight measurements, histological findings in lung tissue specimens and cell counts through bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were performed to determine the anti-inflammatory effects of AMC. The AMC treated groups with BLM induction had a decreased tendency of inflammation on our experiments. A dose of 100 mg/kg AMC induce group showed that similar aspect with control group on histological results. In addition, the lymphocyte rate appeared a noticeable on this group. The degree of lymphocyte was remarkably lower. It was inferred that inflammatory improvement in the AMC treated group. We confirmed that the BLM-induced lung disease model that progressed inflammation was inhibited by AMC. Furthermore, AMC performs an anti-inflammation function and has the possibility of use for the treatment of inflammatory disease.