Role of the NFkB subunit p50 in particle induced, aseptic lung inflammation.

We tested the hypothesis that pulmonary exposure to sterile carbon nanoparticles (CNP), a main constituent of urban air pollution, generates an acute inflammatory response by involving the p50 subunit of NFkB1, a pathway generally crucial for inflammatory gene expression in sepsis. Exposing wt and p50-deficinet mice to CNP caused an acute, aseptic neutrophilic alveolitis. While the storm of acute phase cytokines was much more pronounced in p50 mice, no genotype related difference in the number of to the airspace recruited inflammatory leukocytes could be detected. Nuclear profiling of CNP exposed lung however detected NFkB activation only for WT and not p50 mice. Even the activation potential of alveolar macrophages (AM), which are known to be the primary source of inflammatory cytokine production in infected lungs, revealed a rather antiinflammatory skewed phenotype for p50 AMs. Finally our results indicate that inflammatory pathways described for infectious, septic triggers might differ from those during aseptic, sterile inflammation and may thus require further investigations