The effect of atorvastatin on pulmonary ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats

Objective To explore the protective effect of atorvastatin(Lipitor) on the acute lung injury with ischemia-reperfusion and its possible mechanism.Methods Single lung in site ischemia-reperfusion animal model was used.Thirty Wistar rats were randomly divided into three equal groups and 10 rats were in each group:sham operate group(SO),pulmonary models of ischemia-reperfusion injury(IR) and atorvastation treated group(AT).The two latter groups were all ischemia for 60 minutes followed by reperfusion for 120 minutes.In the AT group,each rat was treated with atorvastation(10mg/kg) for the seventh day.Wet to dry weight rate(W/D),lung permeability index(LPI) were measured respectively.Lung tissue was observed by light microscope.Immunohistochemical technique was used to determine the immunoractivity of nityic oxide synthase(NOS).Results The levels of LPI and W/D were significantly decreased in AT group than in IR group by statistically significant differences(P0.01).The AT group showed increased expression of eNOS,but the expression of iNOS was significantly decreased than that in IR group by statistically significant differences(P0.01).Conclusions Atorvastatin could significantly protect lung injury induced by ischemia-reperfusion in an experimental model of lung.This protective effect highly attribute to atorvastatin,which can ameliorate inflammation and upregulate the expression of eNOS and down-regulate of iNOS.