Prevention of excessive collagen accumulation by human intravenous immunoglobulin treatment in a murine model of bleomycin-induced scleroderma

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by fibrotic changes in skin and other organs involving excessive collagen deposition. Here we investigated the effect of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) on fibrosis in a murine model of bleomycin (BLM)-induced scleroderma. Scleroderma was induced in C3H/He J mice by subcutaneous BLM injections daily for 35 days. The collagen content in skin samples from the BLM-injected group (6.30 +/- 0.11 mg/g tissue) was significantly higher than the PBS group (5.80 +/- 0.10 mg/g tissue), and corresponded with dermal thickening at the injection site. In contrast, mice treated with IVIG for 5 consecutive days after initiating BLM injection showed lesser collagen content significantly (IVIG group, 5.61 +/- 0.09 mg/g tissue; BLM vs. IVIG). In order to investigate the cellular and protein characteristics in the early stage of the model, the skin samples were obtained 7 days after the onset of experiment. Macrophage infiltration to the dermis, monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP-1)-positive cells, and increased TGF-beta 1 mRNA expression were also observed in the BLM group. IVIG inhibited these early fibrogenic changes; MCP-1 expression was significantly lesser for the IVIG group (1.52 +/- 0.19 pg/mg tissue) than for the BLM group (2.49 +/- 0.26 pg/mg tissue). In contrast, TGF-beta 1 mRNA expression was significantly inhibited by IVIG. These results suggest that IVIG treatment may inhibit macrophage recruitment to fibrotic sites by down regulating MCP-1 and TGF-beta production, and thus could be a potential drug for managing fibrotic disorders such as SSc.