Downregulation of ITM2A Gene Expression in Macrophages of Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis.

OBJECTIVES: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a rheumatic disorder that is mostly determined by genetic and environmental factors. Given the known importance of macrophage in AS pathogenesis, we investigated the transcriptional profile of macrophage cells in the disease. METHODS AND RESULTS: Two approaches of differential expression and subsequently, weighted gene co-expression network analysis was utilized to analyze a publicly available microarray dataset of macrophages. Integral membrane protein 2A (ITM2A) was among the most significant genes with a decreased trend in the common results of both methods. In order to confirm the finding, the expression of ITM2A was evaluated in monocyte-derived (M2-like) and M1 macrophages obtained from 14 AS patients and 14 controls. Macrophages were differentiated from whole-blood separated monocytes by 7 days incubating with macrophage colony-stimulating factor and then macrophages specific markers were verified with the flow cytometer. M1 polarization was induced by IFN-γ and lipopolysaccharide. Finally, relative gene expression analysis by real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed a significant downregulation of the ITM2A gene in both M2 like and M1 macrophages of the AS group compared to the control. CONCLUSION: Since ITM2A plays a critical role in osteo- and chondrogenic cellular differentiation, our finding may provide new insights into AS pathogenesis.

The impact of 17ß-estradiol and progesterone therapy on peripheral blood mononuclear cells of asthmatic patients.

There is a significant fluctuation in clinical symptoms of asthmatic females during their life course, suggesting that the reproductive status and the level of sex hormones may affect the development of asthma and its exacerbation. In this study, we aimed to assess the biological effects of 17ß-estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4), alone or in combination form, on the transcription factors and production of cytokines in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). PBMCs of the mild-to-moderate asthmatic patients and healthy controls (HCs) were treated with equivalent serum levels of E2 or P4 maintained during hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The expression levels of T-bet, GATA-3, RORγt, PU.1, and Foxp3 were assessed by quantitative PCR. We also measured the concentration of IL-4, IL-9, IL-10, IFN-γ, and TGF-ß in cell culture supernatants using ELISA. IL-4 production and GATA-3 expression levels slightly increased when asthmatic PBMCs were treated with E2 (p < 0.01), P4 (p < 0.01), or E2 + P4 (p < 0.001) compared to the untreated cells. IL-9 secretion (p < 0.001) and PU.1 gene expression levels (p < 0.05) were slightly higher in asthmatic patients' PBMCs before treatment but hormone therapy did not affect the level of them. Although the untreated asthmatic PBMCs produced a lower amount of IFN-γ compared to HCs (p < 0.01), hormone treatment did not affect the levels of IFN-γ secretion in patient groups. Moreover, we did not observe any significant changes in IL-10 and TGF-ß secretion in the supernatant of hormone treated cells. We found that the common applied HRT may faintly increase GATA-3 expression and IL-4 production levels in PBMCs of asthmatic patients and can slightly increase asthma severity.

Catalase application in cancer therapy: Simultaneous focusing on hypoxia attenuation and macrophage reprogramming.

The tumor microenvironment (TME), as an immunosuppressive milieu, has a critical role in tumor progression and increases resistance to the conventional treatments. Among the abundant immunosuppressive cells in the TME, tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) could be a promising target for reprogramming and potentiating the local anti-tumor response. On the other hand, hypoxia is a major barrier in treating solid tumors, which aggravates the situation and alleviates the anti-tumor immune responses. Moreover, catalase and catalase-mimicking compounds can efficiently participate in the TAMs polarization and hypoxia attenuation in the TME. In this review, we will introduce a practical and novel approach which can simultaneously reduce hypoxia and polarize TAMs in the TME. Furthermore, catalase therapeutic effects in combination with cancer therapy methods will be fully discussed. This work aims to inspire readers to explore new avenues for designing and development of next-generation catalase-based formulations for cancer therapy.

Evaluation of the Ankylosing Spondylitis Transcriptome for Oxidative Phosphorylation Pathway: The Shared Pathway with Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a systemic inflammatory disorder of joints and entheses. Recent studies have reported an increased prevalence of dementia in AS patients. However, data for exploring the association between dementia and AS remain uncertain. In this study, enriched pathways and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in whole blood transcription data of AS patients obtained from the gene expression omnibus (GEO) database; using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and differential expression analysis. Four pathways, including oxidative phosphorylation, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases were significantly enriched in AS patients compared to the controls. We identified 22 common genes among the pathways that showed an increasing trend in AS compared to the controls. Five of them including COX7B, NDUFB3, ATP5PF, UQCRB, and NDUFS4 were the most significant genes which were selected for gene expression analysis; using real-time PCR on RNA contents of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of AS patients and controls (20 samples from each group). The gene expression analysis indicated considerable overexpression of COX7B (p<0.0001) and ATP5J (p=0.0001) genes in AS patients group in comparison to the control samples. The role of oxidative phosphorylation has previously been established in dementia pathogenesis. Given that AS patients have also a remarkably higher prevalence of dementia than the their healthy counterparts, hence our results may propose that the common pathway of oxidative phosphorylation can be regarded as a possible shared contributing factor in the etiopathogenesis of AS and dementia.