Authors: Kouji Nagata Kouji Masumoto Toru Uesugi Shinya Yamamoto Keigo Yoshizaki Satoshi Fukumoto Kazuaki Nonaka Tomoaki Taguchi
Publish Date: 2007/07/25
Volume: 23, Issue: 10, Pages: 953-959
Abstract
In congenital diaphragmatic hernia CDH both mortality and morbidity are mainly caused by pulmonary hypoplasia and persistent pulmonary hypertension Insulinlike growth factors IGFs are one of the growth factors that may play an important role in the fetal lung development Elucidating the roles of these growth factors regarding fetal lung development would thus provide new insight regarding the optimal therapy for CDH patients The aim of this study is to investigate the role of IGFs in the fetal lung development The mRNA expression of IGFs and its receptors was analyzed by realtime RTPCR from embryonic day E 115 to E185 mice In addition the lungs dissected from the E175 mice were divided into the following three groups lungs cultured only in the serumfree medium group I n = 5 lungs cultured in medium containing either IGFI group II n = 5 or IGFII group III n = 5 All cultures were investigated by immunohistochemistry using the antibodies of thyroid transcription factor TTF1 prosurfactant protein proSpC alpha smooth muscle actin αSMA and antiproliferating cell nuclear antigen PCNA The mRNA expression level of both IGFI and IGFII was higher during the earlier stage than that of later stage In contrast the mRNA expression of both IGFI receptor IGFIR and IGFII receptor IGFIIR was higher from the E175 to E185 than that at any other stage The number of positive cells for TTF1 proSpC αSMA and PCNA increased more in both groups II and III than in group I Based on our findings IGFs are suggested to induce alveolar and vascular maturation in the late stages of fetal lung development Therefore the administration of IGFs to the fetal CDH lung may thus be able to effectively improve the symptoms of hypoplastic lung
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