Background and purpose: It has been suggested that interleukin-1 (IL-1) is a potent inflammatory mediator and that it is synthesized and secreted into the brain parenchyma. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the contribution of IL-1 to brain edema formation after focal brain ischemia.
Methods: The brain water content was measured to evaluate postischemic brain injury in rats after 60 minutes of middle cerebral artery occlusion and reperfusion. The effects of exogenous application of recombinant human interleukin-1 beta (rhIL-1 beta), anti-interleukin-1 beta neutralizing antibodies (anti-IL-1 beta), and the IL-1 blocker zinc protoporphyrin (ZnPP) on brain water content were observed, and histological technique was used to measure the infarction size and number of inflammatory cells infiltrated into the brain.
Results: Transient ischemia induced marked increase of brain water content, necrosis, and neutrophilic infiltration in the cortex perfused by the middle cerebral artery and the dorsal and ventral areas of the caudate putamen. Injection of rhIL-1 beta into the left lateral ventricle immediately after reperfusion markedly enhanced ischemic brain edema formation in these three areas in a dose-dependent manner (88.4 +/- 0.7% and 86.6 +/- 0.4% in the dorsal and ventral parts of the caudate putamen, respectively, in rats treated with 10 ng rhIL-1 beta; P < .01). rhIL-1 beta also increased the size of the brain infarction, and it tended to increase the number of infiltrating neutrophils in ischemic areas and the number of neutrophils adherent to the endothelium. In contrast, administration of anti-IL-1 beta and ZnPP into the left cerebral ventricle attenuated the postischemic increase of brain water content and decreased the size of brain infarction (83.5 +/- 2.0% and 79.9 +/- 2.0% in the dorsal and ventral parts of the caudate putamen, respectively, in rats treated with 10 micrograms anti-IL-1 beta; P < .01). The number of neutrophils that infiltrated into ischemic areas also tended to decrease with anti-IL-1 beta or ZnPP treatment.
Conclusions: Application of rhIL-1 beta augmented the increase of brain water content, and application of anti-IL-1 beta depressed the increase of water content. These results tended to correlate with the neutrophilic infiltration into the parenchyma. It thus appears that IL-1 beta may play an important role in ischemic brain damage after reperfusion.