The Levels of TNF-α, Tissue Factor, and Coagulation Function in Rats with Pulmonary Hypertension and the Intervention Effect of Sildenafil Encapsulated by Targeted Nanocarriers

Abstract

Pulmonary hypertension (PAH) is a proliferative disease of pulmonary blood vessels, but the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension is still unclear. This article explores the role of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), tissue factor (TF), and coagulation function (CF) in the pathogenesis of PAH. PAH is often accompanied by vascular intima injury and muscular arterial media thickening. Coupled with the wide application of nanotargeted drugs in recent years, a targeted nanocarrier encapsulating sildenafil was prepared in this study. The particle size, PDI, zeta potential, drug loading, and encapsulation efficiency were $194.32\pm 17.31\text{nm}$ , $0.28\pm 0.02$ , $-6.34\pm 0.33$ , 24.61%, and 70.52%. The monocrotaline PAH rat model was constructed, and it was found that the levels of TNF-α, TF, and CF in the peripheral blood of PAH rats were abnormally increased. 30 PAH rats were randomly divided into 5 groups and injected with saline (NS group), sildenafil (sildenafil group), target the nanoempty carrier (TNC-E group), ordinary nanocarrier encapsulated sildenafil (CNC-sildenafil group), and targeted nanocarrier encapsulate sildenafil (TNC-sildenafil group). Compared with the NS group, the mean pulmonary artery pressure in the TNC-sildenafil group was lower ( $P<0.05$ ). Compared with the normal rat group, the pulmonary small blood vessel media thickness, TNF-α level, TF level, and the area of myocardial cells were increased in the NS group, sildenafil group, TNC-E group, and CNC-sildenafil group ( $P<0.05$ ). Compared with the NS group, the pulmonary small blood vessel media thickness, myocardial cell area, and the levels of TNF-α and TF in the TNC-sildenafil group were reduced ( $P<0.05$ ). Targeting nanocarrier encapsulation of sildenafil can obviously reduce the average pulmonary artery pressure in rats with pulmonary hypertension, improve pulmonary vascular media proliferation and myocardial hypertrophy, and restore the levels of TNF-α, TF, and CF to a normal state.