Treatment of Paraquat-Induced Lung Injury With an Anti-C5a Antibody: Potential Clinical Application*

Sun, Shihui; Jiang, Yuting; Wang, Renxi; Liu, Chenfeng; Liu, Xiaoling; Song, Nianping; Guo, Yan; Guo, Renfeng; Du, Lanying; Jiang, Shibo; Li, Yan; Qiu, Zewu; Zhao, Guangyu; Zhou, Yusen

Dr. R. Guo disclosed that he is a cofounder for InflaRx, who provides IFX-1 used in this study. The remaining authors have disclosed that they do not have any potential conflicts of interest. Our previous studies showed that aberrant complement activation plays an important role in H5N1-induced acute lung injury (ALI) in a mouse model (10) and that targeted blockade of C5a alleviates H7N9-induced ALI in an African Green Monkey model (11) . We also demonstrated aberrant complement activation after paraquat poisoning in a mouse model, suggesting that it plays a major role in paraquat-induced ALI (12) . ALI is characterized by severe lung damage accompanied by a protein-rich pulmonary edema (13) . Lung injury is caused primarily by damage to endothelial and epithelial barriers and is closely associated with activation and infiltration by neutrophils (14) . Clinically, the main cause of ALI is bacterial or viral pneumonia, along with sepsis, transfusions, drug reactions, or chemical reagents (15) . Although lung-protective ventilator strategies have reduced mortality, no effective pharmacologic therapy is available (16, 17) . Thus, an effective means of preventing, alleviating, or retarding systemic inflammatory responses is required.