Plasma LTA4H as an Inflammatory Target for Monitoring +Gz-Induced Injury in Rabbits

Repeated +Gz exposure during high-performance flight can cause inflammatory injury, but whether LTA4H and its related molecules are altered after such exposure and whether LTA4H could serve as a plasma target for monitoring +Gz-induced inflammatory injury remain unclear. Eighteen male New Zealand white rabbits were assigned to control, 2-week, and 4-week groups (n = 6 per group). Plasma proteomics was performed using data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry. LTA4H, LTB4, and IL-6 were quantified by ELISA. Correlations among the three molecules were analyzed by Pearson correlation. Diagnostic performance was assessed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Proteomics identified LTA4H as nominally upregulated in both the 2-week and 4-week groups, but it did not remain significant after false discovery rate correction. It was therefore selected as an exploratory candidate for orthogonal confirmation by ELISA. ELISA confirmed that plasma LTA4H, LTB4, and IL-6 were all significantly elevated after +Gz exposure. Positive correlations were observed in the pooled analysis, but these were attenuated after adjusting for group. LTA4H showed exploratory discrimination of exposure status, with an AUC exceeding 0.9. Repeated +Gz exposure was associated with concurrent elevation of LTA4H, LTB4, and IL-6. LTA4H may serve as a potential plasma target for monitoring +Gz-induced inflammatory injury.