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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Jul 5.
Published in final edited form as: Expert Opin Investig Drugs. 2009 Aug;18(8):1047–1060. doi: 10.1517/13543780903018880

Figure 4. In studies measuring the effect of LPS and ethyl pyruvate on tissue expression of NF-κβ (Panels A and B), plasma cytokine levels (Panels C and D) and nitric oxide levels (Panels E and F), C57BL/6J mice (n = 108) were challenged with saline or with LPS (30 mg/kg) [14].

Figure 4

LPS animals were also randomized to ethyl pyruvate (100 mg/kg) treatment or diluent. Early (3 h) or late (9 h) animals were randomly selected for plasma cytokine and nitric oxide levels followed by lung and kidney NF-κB measurement. Compared with saline challenge, LPS increased NF-κB levels significantly in both lung and kidney at 3 h, and in lung at 9 h (Panel A). In both organs, changes with LPS were greater early compared to late. LPS, compared with placebo ethyl pyruvate, had significantly different effects on lung NF-κB levels at early versus late (Panel B). While ethyl pyruvate decreased lung NF-κB early, it increased NF-κβ late. In a similar pattern, ethyl pyruvate was also associated with an early decrease and later increase in kidney NF-κB levels, but these changes were not significant. Compared with saline, LPS increased almost all cytokines significantly both early and late (Panel C). With LPS, compared with placebo, ethyl pyruvate did not alter any individual cytokine significantly at either time-point (Panel D). However, as with lung NF-κB levels, ethyl pyruvate was associated with early decreases and later increases in IL-1β, IL-2, IL-10, TNF-α and JE that were significantly different comparing the two time-points. Overall, ethyl pyruvate was associated with decreases in 11 cytokines early and increases in 11 late in significantly different patterns. Finally, LPS increased NO levels early and late, and these changes were greater later (Panel E). In a pattern that was not significant, but was similar to both NF-κB and cytokine levels, ethyl pyruvate was associated with a decrease in NO early and an increase later (Panel F) [14].

*p < 0.05 for the effect of LPS.

‡p < 0.05 comparing the effect of EP at 3 versus 9 h for the individual cytokine.