Figure 1.

Significantly increased levels of serum NSPs in APAP-induced ALI and their correlation with disease severity. A-E Male C57BL/6J mice received either 0.9% NaCl (ctrl, n = 5) or APAP at 300 mg/kg (n = 11). After 30 h, splenic/hepatic tissues and sera were analyzed. A To assess liver damage, serum ALT levels were determined (**p < 0.01). B Hepatic mRNA expression of Cxcl2 in these same mice was analyzed using realtime PCR and results showed a strong correlation to the linked ALT levels (C). Moreover, splenic mRNA expression of Cxcl2 (D) and Tnfα (E) was analyzed using realtime PCR. B, D-E Target mRNA normalized to Gapdh is shown as absolute values (*p < 0.05). F-H Male C57BL/6J mice received either 0.9% NaCl or APAP at 300 mg/kg (each group n = 8). After 30 h, serum levels of CtsG (F), NE (G), and Prtn3 (H) were determined by ELISA (***p < 0.001). I-K In these same serum samples, CtsG (I), NE (J), and Prtn3 (K) strongly correlated with their linked serum ALT levels. Statistical analysis: A-B, D, F-H, raw data were analyzed by unpaired Student´s t-test and are shown as means ± SEM; E, raw data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney-U-test and are shown as boxplots; C, I-K, R² was calculated by simple linear regression; n.s., not statistically significant.