Expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase in lungs of broiler chickens following intravenous cellulose microparticle injection.

Intravenous microparticle (MP) injection is a patented method used to select broilers with a robust pulmonary capacity and improved resistance to pulmonary hypertension syndrome (PHS, ascites). Injected MP become entrapped in the terminal pulmonary arterioles where they elicit an increase in pulmonary arterial pressure attributable to vascular occlusion and focal thrombocyte aggregation. Within 2 to 48 h postinjection perivascular mononuclear cell aggregates begin to form around MP-occluded vessels. Nitric oxide (NO) has been shown to modulate the pulmonary arterial pressure response to MP entrapment, but a role of NO during the more chronic (2 to 48 h) focal inflammatory response has not been evaluated. In this study we determined the time-course of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in the lungs of MP-injected broilers from PHS-resistant (RES) and PHS-susceptible (SUS) lines. Four-week-old broilers (10 broilers/line per time point) were injected i.v. with a minimally lethal dose of MP, and the right lung was collected at 0 h (no MP) and 2, 24, and 48 h postinjection. Immunohistochemistry revealed that macrophage infiltration increased over time in both lines and was higher in the RES line than the SUS line (P<0.0001) at all time points. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate diaphorase staining showed nitric oxide synthase activity around MP-occluded vessels and in the perivascular mononuclear cell aggregates. Relative iNOS expression in lung tissue was examined by 2-step reverse transcription PCR. Lines differed in relative iNOS mRNA expression only at 24 h (P<0.001; RES > SUS line). For the RES line iNOS mRNA expression increased consistently from 0 to 48 h, but for the SUS line iNOS mRNA expression increased at 2 h, decreased to baseline at 24 h, and increased again by 48 h. The decline in iNOS expression in the SUS line between 2 and 24 h coincides with the interval when most of the MP-induced mortality occurs, which suggests that NO synthesized by iNOS may contribute to lower MP-induced mortality in the RES line when compared with the SUS line.