Brain injury requires lung protection

The paper entitled “The high-mobility group protein B1-Receptor for advanced glycation endproducts (HMGB1-RAGE) axis mediates traumatic brain injury (TBI)-induced pulmonary dysfunction in lung transplantation” published recently in Science Translational Medicine links lung failure after transplantation with alterations in the axis HMGB1-RAGE after TBI, opening a new field for exploring indicators for the early detection of patients at risk of developing acute lung injury (ALI). The lung is one of the organs most vulnerable to the inflammatory cascade triggered by TBI. HMGB1 is an alarm in that can be released from activated immune cells in response to tissue injury. Increased systemic HMGB1 concentration correlates with poor lung function before and after lung transplant, confirming its role in acute ALI after TBI. HMGB1 exerts its influence by interacting with several receptors, including the RAGE receptor. RAGE also plays an important role in the onset of innate immune inflammatory responses, and systemic levels of RAGE are strongly associated with ALI and clinical outcomes in ventilator-induced lung injury. RAGE ligation to HMGB1 triggers the amplification of the inflammatory cascade involving nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) activation. Identifying early biomarkers that mediate pulmonary dysfunction will improve outcomes not only in lung transplantation, but also in other scenarios. These novel findings show that upregulation of the HMGB1-RAGE axis plays an important role in brain-lung crosstalk.