Figure 4
Overall in vivo and in vitro experimental scheme. Left: For the in vivo experiments, in order to obtain comparable work of breathing and mean arterial pressure, different total drug infusion concentrations of dexmedetomidine and propofol were infused (mean values from 10 animals: 5.3 × 10–6 μg, and 10.4 × 10–4 μg, respectively). Right: For the in vitro experiments, the total drug infusion concentrations of both dexmedetomidine and propofol were converted to respective plasma molarity (236.7 M and 178.3 M). An additional 5 male Wistar rats were subjected to focal ischemic stroke; 24 h later, alveolar macrophages and lung endothelial cells were primarily extracted, cultured, and, after achieving 80% confluence, exposed to similar amounts of dexmedetomidine and propofol as used in the in vivo experiments. Gene expressions of IL-6 in alveolar macrophage (A) and IL-1β in lung endothelial cells (B) in the STROKE, DEX, and PRO groups were evaluated after 1 h of exposure, the same time used for the in vivo experiments. No difference was observed between PRO versus STROKE (p = 0.198) and PRO versus DEX (p = 0.312) in relation to IL-6 in alveolar macrophages. No difference was observed between PRO versus STROKE (p = 0.999) in relation to IL-1β in lung endothelial cells. Box plots represent the median and interquartile range of 5 animals in each group. Comparisons done by Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn’s multiple comparisons test (p < 0.05).
