Proteome investigation of rat lungs subjected to Ex vivo perfusion (EVLP)

Ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) is an emerging procedure that allows organ preservation, assessment and reconditioning, increasing the number of marginal donor lungs for transplantation. However, physiological and airflow measurements are unable to unveil the molecular mechanisms responsible of EVLP beneficial effects on lung graft and monitor the proper course of the treatment. Thus, it is urgent to find specific biomarkers that possess these requirements but also accurate and reliable techniques that identify them. The purpose of this study is to give an overview on the potentiality of shotgun proteomic platforms in characterizing the status and the evolution of metabolic pathways during EVLP in order to find new potential EVLP-related biomarkers. A nanoLC-MS/MS system was applied to the proteome analysis of lung tissues from an optimized rat model in three experimental groups: native, pre- and post-EVLP. Technical and biological repeatability were evaluated and, together with clustering analysis, underlined the good quality of data produced. In-house software and bioinformatics tools allowed the label-free extraction of differentially expressed proteins among the three examined conditions and the network visualization of the pathways mainly involved. These promising findings encourage further proteomic investigations of the molecular mechanisms behind EVLP procedure.