Skip to main content
. 2021 Oct 22;6(20):e150813. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.150813

Figure 2. Trauma injury releases free heme.

Figure 2

(A) Levels of free heme in the plasma from healthy volunteers and trauma patients on day 1 (n = 6/group). (B and C) Levels of free heme (n = 3–10/group) and hemopexin (Hpx; n = 3–4/group) in the plasma after liver crush injury in mice. (D) Hmox1 mRNA expression levels in the injured left liver lobes and the uninjured right liver lobes after crush injury (normalized to beta-actin; n = 3–5/group). (E) HO-1 protein levels in the naive (n = 2) and injured liver lobes after crush injury (normalized to vinculin; n = 4/group). Western blot images are shown below. (F and G) Mean fluorescent intensity (MFI) of HO-1 in blood cells (WBC; n = 3/group) and BM cells 24 hours after liver crush injury (n = 4/group). (H) Levels of free heme in the plasma after liver crush injury in Hpx–/– mice (n = 3-4/group). (I) Fold change of S. aureus CFU in the BALF 24 hours after infection in C57BL/6 mice and Hpx–/– mice, both with liver crush injury performed 4 hours before the infection (n = 14/group). (J) Fold change of S. aureus CFU in the lungs 24 hours after infection in C57BL/6 mice with infection only (n = 11), trauma followed by infection (n = 7), and trauma followed by Hpx treatment and then infection (n = 3). All data are presented as mean ± SEM. Statistical analyses for A, F, G, and I were performed by unpaired 2-tailed Student’s t test. All other P values were calculated by 1-way ANOVA with post hoc Tukey’s test. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001.