Diabetic cardiomyopathy is a common disease in postmenopausal women, in whom the estrogen deficiency aggravates the pathology. In this study, we have found that estrogen deficiency due to ovariectomy aggravates the inflammation in the hearts of diabetic mice, as depicted by excessive proinflammatory type 1 macrophages (M1) over anti-inflammatory type 2 macrophages (M2). Accordingly, an additional increase of reactive oxygen species, cell apoptosis, cardiac hypertrophy, and fibrosis was observed in the hearts of ovariectomized diabetic mice, in comparison with the diabetes-only group. Significantly, miR155, a potent promoter of M1 polarization, was found to be additionally enhanced in the macrophages and hearts by ovariectomy. Tail vein injection of miR155-AuNP, in which thiol-modified antago-miR155 was covalently conjugated with gold nanoparticle (AuNP), preferentially delivered the nucleic acids into the macrophages via phagocytosis. Together with the increased M2 ratio and reduced inflammation, in vivo delivery of antago-miR155 reduced cell apoptosis and restored the cardiac function. The restoration efficacy of miR155-AuNP was much better than general macrophage depletion by clodrosome. In summary, we revealed that M1/M2 imbalance contributes to the aggravated cardiomyopathy in ovariectomized diabetic mice, and therapeutically reducing miR155 in macrophages by AuNP serves as a promising strategy in improving cardiac function.

The function of the NAD(P)H oxidases (NOXs) family member NOX4 is to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), however, the molecular function of NOX4 has not been fully studied and waiting to be clarified. To elucidate the function of endogenous Nox4 in human thyroid carcinomas, papillomatosis thyroid cancer cells were used to study the cell growth by knocking down the expression of NOX4 and knocking out its functional partner p22phox/CYBA. As a result, the increasement of mitochondrial ROS(mROS) was abolished due to both knockdown of NOX4 and p22phox knockout in hypoxia, which destabilized HIF1α decreasing glycolysis and retarded cell growth. These data suggests that Nox4 is potent oncotarget due to its role in regulating glycolysis through mROS-HIF1α pathway, thereby mediating proliferation in thyroid carcinomas.

BackgroundMarek's disease (MD) is a lymphoproliferative disease in chickens caused by Marek's disease virus (MDV) and characterized by T cell lymphoma and infiltration of lymphoid cells into various organs such as liver, spleen, peripheral nerves and muscle. Resistance to MD and disease risk have long been thought to be influenced both by genetic and environmental factors, the combination of which contributes to the observed outcome in an individual. We hypothesize that after MDV infection, genes related to MD-resistance or -susceptibility may exhibit different trends in transcriptional activity in chicken lines having a varying degree of resistance to MD.ResultsIn order to study the mechanisms of resistance and susceptibility to MD, we performed genome-wide temporal expression analysis in spleen tissues from MD-resistant line 63, susceptible line 72 and recombinant congenic strain M (RCS-M) that has a phenotype intermediate between lines 63 and 72 after MDV infection. Three time points of the MDV life cycle in chicken were selected for study: 5 days post infection (dpi), 10dpi and 21dpi, representing the early cytolytic, latent and late cytolytic stages, respectively. We observed similar gene expression profiles at the three time points in line 63 and RCS-M chickens that are both different from line 72. Pathway analysis using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) showed that MDV can broadly influence the chickens irrespective of whether they are resistant or susceptible to MD. However, some pathways like cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular disease were found to be affected only in line 72; while some networks related to cell-mediated immune response and antigen presentation were enriched only in line 63 and RCS-M. We identified 78 and 30 candidate genes associated with MD resistance, at 10 and 21dpi respectively, by considering genes having the same trend of expression change after MDV infection in lines 63 and RCS-M. On the other hand, by considering genes with the same trend of expression change after MDV infection in lines 72 and RCS-M, we identified 78 and 43 genes at 10 and 21dpi, respectively, which may be associated with MD-susceptibility.ConclusionsBy testing temporal transcriptome changes using three representative chicken lines with different resistance to MD, we identified 108 candidate genes for MD-resistance and 121 candidate genes for MD-susceptibility over the three time points. Genes included in our resistance or susceptibility genes lists that are also involved in more than 5 biofunctions, such as CD8α, IL8, USP18, and CTLA4, are considered to be important genes involved in MD-resistance or -susceptibility. We were also able to identify several biofunctions related with immune response that we believe play an important role in MD-resistance.

Objective: To analyze the positive and recurrence rates of different autoantibody-associated demyelination disorders in children in Southwest China, and describe the clinical, radiological, and prognostic features of the myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody (MOG-ab) and aquaporin-4 antibody (AQP4-ab) associated disease. This study also summarizes steroid maintenance therapy approaches for MOG-ab-positive children.Methods: A total of 160 children presenting with acquired demyelinating syndromes (ADS) between January 2016 and December 2019 were tested for MOG-ab and AQP4-ab. Clinical data, MRI scans, and survival analyses were compared between MOG-ab-positive and AQP4-ab-positive children. Evolution of serologic status and treatment response to immunosuppressants were collected in MOG-ab-positive children.Results: Of the 160 included children, the MOG-ab positivity rate (47.4%) was significantly higher than the AQP4-ab (5%) positivity rate. The recurrence rate for AQP4-ab disease (71.4%) was higher than that of MOG-ab disease (30.1%). For 135 children with both MOG-ab and AQP4-ab tested, the median age at onset was 7 (interquartile range [IQR] 5–10) years, and the median follow-up period was 19 (IQR 13–27.5) months. MOG-ab-positive children more frequently presented with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, had deep gray matter lesions on MRI, had a better clinical and radiological recovery, and were less likely to have sustained disability than AQP4-ab-positive children. In MOG-ab-positive and AQP4-ab-positive children, maintenance therapy was a protective factor for recurrence, but presenting optic neuritis was a predictor of earlier relapse. A high Expanded Disability Status Scale score at onset was associated with sustained disability. Steroid maintenance therapy longer than 6 months after the initial attack was associated with a lower risk of a second relapse in MOG-ab-positive children. On serial serum MOG antibody analysis, clinical relapse occurred in 34.6% of children with persistent seropositivity, but none of the children who converted to seronegative status experienced relapse.Conclusion: The MOG antibody is more common in children with ADS than the AQP4 antibody. MOG-ab-positive children are characterized by distinct clinical and radiological features. Although some MOG-ab-positive children experience relapsing courses or have persistently seropositive status, they still predict a better outcome than AQP4-ab-positive children.

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Tumor necrosis-associated factor 6 (TRAF6) performs critical roles in mediating apoptosis-associated inflammatory processes in multiple cell types, but its role in cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury is still unclear. In the present study, we established a middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) reperfusion model in rat, and evaluated both the cerebral inflammatory damage and the cell apoptosis by TTC staining and TUNEL method, respectively. The expression of TRAF6 and the neural cell apoptosis was examined during the I/R pathophysiological process. Cerebral ischemia injury induced significant neuronal cell apoptosis, but after the onset of reperfusion, cell apoptosis was gradually alleviated. In accord with the trend of I/R injury and cell apoptosis, up-regulated TRAF6 mRNA expression and caspase-3 cleavage level were observed in the ischemia stage and the early stage of reperfusion accordingly, which indicated that the activation of TRAF6 correlated positively with the cell apoptosis. Immunohistochemistry staining further showed that the TRAF6 was mainly localized in the neuronal cells. Thus, our study suggested that TRAF6 is involved in the inflammatory process induced by cerebral ischemia-reperfusion, and functions partially as a pro-inflammatory adaptor to mediate cell apoptosis.