Background: Cocaine is a psychostimulant drug with high addictive proprieties. Evidence suggests that cocaine use leads to critical changes in the immune system, with significant effects on T, B, and natural killer (NK) cells and influencing peripheral levels of cytokines. The presence of abstinence-related symptoms during detoxification treatment is known to influence the prognosis. Here, our aim was to investigate immune profiles in women with cocaine use disorder (CUD) according to withdrawal symptoms severity.Methods: Blood samples and clinical data were collected at onset of detoxification treatment of 50 women with CUD. The patients were stratified according to Cocaine Selective Severity Assessment (CSSA) scores in low withdrawal (L-W) and high withdrawal (H-W) categories. In addition, we also included a control group with 19 healthy women as reference to immune parameters. Peripheral blood was collected and lymphocyte subsets were phenotyped by multi-color flow cytometry (B cells, CD4+ T, CD8+ T, NK cells, and different stages of T-cell differentiation). PBMCs from patients and healthy controls were stimulated in vitro with phytohemagglutinin (1%) for 72 h to assess the production of Th1/Th2/Th17 cytokines.Results: Following stimulation, lymphocytes from women with CUD produced increased levels of Th1/Th2/Th17 cytokines. However, higher levels of IL-2 and IL-17 were observed only in the L-W group, while higher levels of IL-6 were detected in the H-W group compared to controls. H-W group showed lower percentage of early-differentiated Th cells (CD4+CD27+CD28+), elevated percentage of Th cells (CD3+CD4+), intermediate-differentiated Th cells (CD4+CD27−CD28+), and B cells (CD3−CD19+). Both CUD groups showed decreased percentages of naïve T cells (CD3+CD4+CD45RA+ and CD3+CD8+CD45RA+).Conclusion: Our data demonstrated that CUD can lead to increased production of Th1/Th2/Th17 cytokines and lymphocyte changes.
Early life stress (ELS) exposure is a well-known risk factor for the development of psychiatric conditions, including anxiety disorder. Preclinical studies show that maternal separation (MS), a classical model of ELS, causes hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis alterations, a key contributor to the stress response modulation. Given that HPA axis activation has been shown to induce oxidative stress, it is possible to hypothesize that oxidative stress mediates the relationship between chronic ELS exposure and the development of several disorders. Here, we investigate the effects of MS in the oxidative status [plasma and brain reduced glutathione, catalase and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS)], metabolism (glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol) and anxiety-like behaviors in adult Balb/cJ mice. In short, we found that MS increased anxiety-like behaviors in the open field, light/dark test but not in the elevated-plus maze. Animals also presented increased circulating cholesterol, increased TBARS in the plasma and decreased catalase in the hippocampus. Our findings suggest that MS induces long-term alterations in oxidative stress and increased anxiety-like behaviors.
Esophageal cancer is an aggressive tumor and is the sixth leading cause of cancer death worldwide. ATP is well known to regulate cancer progression in a variety of models by different mechanisms, including P2X7R activation. This study aimed to evaluate the role of P2X7R in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) proliferation. Our results show that treatment with high ATP concentrations induced a decrease in cell number, cell viability, number of polyclonal colonies, and reduced migration of ESCC. The treatment with the selective P2X7R antagonist A740003 or siRNA for P2X7 reverted this effect in the KYSE450 cell line. In addition, results showed that P2X7R is highly expressed, at mRNA and protein levels, in KYSE450 lineage. Additionally, KYSE450, KYSE30, and OE21 cells express P2X3R, P2X4R, P2X5R, P2X6R, and P2X7R genes. P2X1R is expressed by KYSE30 and KYSE450, and only KYSE450 expresses the P2X2R gene. Furthermore, esophageal cancer cell line KYSE450 presented higher expression of E-NTPDases 1 and 2 and of Ecto-5′-NT/CD73 when compared to normal cells. This cell line also exhibits ATPase, ADPase, and AMPase activity, although in different levels, and the co-treatment of apyrase was able to revert the antiproliferative effects of ATP. Moreover, results showed high immunostaining for P2X7R in biopsies of patients with esophageal carcinoma, indicating the involvement of this receptor in the growth of this type of cancer. The results suggest that P2X7R may be a potential pharmacological target to treat ESCC and can lead us to further investigate the effect of this receptor in cancer cell progression.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
Poor sleep in elderly populations is associated with detrimental neuropsychological, and physiological changes including premature immunosenescence and reduced brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Here, we evaluated the effects of acupuncture on sleep quality, psychological distress and immunosenescence in elderly, as well as effects on BDNF levels. Forty-eight community-dwelling elderly were randomized into true or placebo acupuncture, and intervention consisted of ten sessions. Sleep quality, depression and stress scores were evaluated by the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), beck depression inventory (BDI II) and perceived stress scale (PSS), respectively, before and after the intervention. Lymphocyte subsets commonly associated with stress, sleep impairment and immunosenescence were phenotyped by flow cytometry. BDNF plasma levels were assessed by ELISAs. Acupuncture was highly effective for improving sleep quality (-53.23%; p<0.01), depression (-48.41%; p<0.01), and stress (-25.46%; p<0.01). However, neither lymphocyte subpopulations nor BDNF levels changed following the intervention.
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