Introduction: Sepsis still has a high mortality in critically-ill patients. Here, analysis of early alterations in cerebral proteome may lead to a better understanding of the molecular basis of cerebral dysfunction. The aim of the present study was therefore to analyze cerebral protein dynamics during emerging sepsis in an established rat model.
Material and methods: To induce sepsis, an established coecal ligature and double puncture (coecal ligature and puncture, CLP) model was used on Wistar rats. After 12 hours, surviving rats (sepsis: n=6 and sham: n=6) were decapitated and their brains prepared for gel electrophoresis (2DE) and subsequent mass spectrometry. Biological function of differentially regulated proteins (t-test, p<0.01) was then analyzed using bioinformatic network analysis (ingenuity pathways analysis, IPA).
Results: Mortality was 40 % in the sepsis-group and no rat of the sham-group died. Altogether, nine significantly regulated proteins were identified (4 up-regulated, 5 down-regulated). IPA then detected eight network proteins and interpreted them in the context of established protein alterations for sepsis.
Conclusion: The combination of proteomics and IPA could identify proteins in rat brain, whose expression was significantly regulated during sepsis. The methodological approach applied in the present study may facilitate the quest for novel sepsis-induced protein alterations in the future.