Inflammatory Profile in Response to Uncontrolled Hemorrhage in a Non-Human Primate (Rhesus Macaque) Model.

BACKGROUND: Uncontrolled hemorrhage (UH), the leading cause of potentially survivable combat-related death, elicits a deleterious inflammatory response. Our group previously reported an increased secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines in a novel non-human primate model of UH; however, to better understand the molecular profile of the inflammatory response to UH, we performed a comprehensive evaluation of inflammation at the proteomic and transcriptomic level.

METHODS: Anesthetized rhesus macaques (n = 8) underwent UH by 60% left lobe hepatectomy T = 0 min. At T = 5 min, animals received 11 mL of 5% albumin followed by normal saline infusion to a total resuscitation volume of 20 mL/kg by T = 120 min. Blood (T = 0, 5, 20, 120, 480 min) was collected for qPCR and multiplex cytokine quantification. Results from each non-human primate (NHP) per time-point are shown. Statistical analysis by one-way ANOVA with repeated measures, P <0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS: Luminex analysis in serum revealed significant up-regulation compared with baseline of 8 cytokines/chemokines starting T = 120 min postinjury and significant down-regulation of 4 cytokines/chemokines as early as T = 20 min postinjury. Gene expression analysis in white blood cells uncovered 10 genes that were up-regulated greater than 3-fold compared with baseline and 29 genes that were down-regulated greater than 3-fold.

CONCLUSION: The present study confirms the presence of systemic inflammation after UH at the proteomic and transcriptomic level providing insight into the inflammatory mediators that are involved as well as their kinetics following UH. The data demonstrates that NHP hemorrhage models may be suitable for evaluating therapeutics to control inflammation following hemorrhage.