Alveolar Macrophage-Derived Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Contributes to Allergic Airway Inflammation in a Mouse Asthma Model

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent proangiogenic factor that correlates with vascular permeability and remodelling in asthma. Recently, alveolar macrophages (AM) were shown to be an important source of VEGF during lung injury. Our previous studies demonstrated that AM are an important subset of macrophages in the initiation of asthmatic symptoms. Here, we further investigated whether AM-derived VEGF was required for allergic airway inflammation in asthma. In this study, we reported that the expression of VEGF in AM was significantly increased after allergen challenge. Depleting AM or neutralizing VEGF in alveolus prevented ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthma-related inflammation by inhibiting the infiltration of inflammatory cells in the lung, reduced the level of the cytokines, IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13, in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and decreased airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR). Moreover, the inhibition of miR-20b increased the protein level of VEGF in normal AM; conversely, increasing miR-20b in asthmatic AM resulted in decreased VEGF protein levels. These findings suggest that AM-derived VEGF is necessary for allergic airway inflammation in asthmatic mice and miR-20b negatively regulates this expression.