FGF10 Attenuates Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury through TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB Pathway.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can induce neuronal apoptosis and neuroinflammation, resulting in substantial neuronal damage and behavioral disorders. Fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) have been shown to be critical mediators in tissue repair. However, the role of FGF10 in experimental TBI remains unknown. In this study, mice with TBI were established via weight-loss model and validated by increase of modified neurological severity scores (mNSS) and brain water content. Secondly, FGF10 levels were elevated in mice after TBI, whereas intraventricular injection of Ad-FGF10 decreased mNSS score and brain water content, indicating the remittance of neurological deficit and cerebral edema in TBI mice. In addition, neuronal damage could also be ameliorated by stereotactic injection of Ad-FGF10. Overexpression of FGF10 increased protein expression of Bcl-2, while it decreased Bax and cleaved caspase-3/PARP, and improved neuronal apoptosis in TBI mice. In addition, Ad-FGF10 relieved neuroinflammation induced by TBI and significantly reduced the level of interleukin 1ß/6, tumor necrosis factor α, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1. Moreover, Ad-FGF10 injection decreased the protein expression level of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), MyD88, and phosphorylation of NF-κB (p-NF-κB), suggesting the inactivation of the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB pathway. In conclusion, overexpression of FGF10 could ameliorate neurological deficit, neuronal apoptosis, and neuroinflammation through inhibition of the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB pathway, providing a potential therapeutic strategy for brain injury in the future.

Withaferin A protects against spinal cord injury by inhibiting apoptosis and inflammation in mice.

CONTEXT: Withaferin A (WFA) exhibits diverse pharmaceutical applications on human diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, cancers and microbial infection. OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the neuroprotective role of WFA using a mouse model of spinal cord injury (SCI). MATERIALS AND METHODS: BALB/c mice were administrated 10 mg/kg of WFA. Gene expression was measured by real-time PCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry. Cell morphology and apoptosis were determined by H&E staining and TUNEL assay. Motor function was evaluated by the BBB functional scale for continuous 7 weeks. RESULTS: WFA significantly improved neurobehavioural function and alleviated histological alteration of spinal cord tissues in traumatized mice. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) significantly increased in WFA-treated mice. Meanwhile, the expression of Nogo-A and RhoA remarkably decreased in the presence of WFA. Furthermore, the apoptotic cell death was attenuated in mice treated with WFA (31.48 ± 2.50% vs. 50.08 ± 2.08%) accompanied by decreased bax and increased bcl-2. In addition, WFA decreased the expression of pro-inflammatory mediators such as IL-1ß (11.20 ± 1.96 ng/mL vs. 17.59 ± 1.42 ng/mL) and TNF-α (57.38 ± 3.57 pg/mL vs. 95.06 ± 9.13 pg/mL). The anti-inflammatory cytokines including TGF-ß1 (14.32 ± 1.04 pg/mL vs. 9.37 ± 1.17 pg/mL) and IL-10 (116.80 ± 6.91 pg/mL vs. 72.33 ± 9.35 pg/mL) were elevated after WFA administration. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated that WFA has a neuroprotective role by inhibition of apoptosis and inflammation after SCI in mice.

Advancing precision medicine in gliomas through single-cell sequencing: unveiling the complex tumor microenvironment.

Glioblastoma (GBM) displays an infiltrative growth characteristic that recruits neighboring normal cells to facilitate tumor growth, maintenance, and invasion into the brain. While the blood-brain barrier serves as a critical natural defense mechanism for the central nervous system, GBM disrupts this barrier, resulting in the infiltration of macrophages from the peripheral bone marrow and the activation of resident microglia. Recent advancements in single-cell transcriptomics and spatial transcriptomics have refined the categorization of cells within the tumor microenvironment for precise identification. The intricate interactions and influences on cell growth within the tumor microenvironment under multi-omics conditions are succinctly outlined. The factors and mechanisms involving microglia, macrophages, endothelial cells, and T cells that impact the growth of GBM are individually examined. The collaborative mechanisms of tumor cell-immune cell interactions within the tumor microenvironment synergistically promote the growth, infiltration, and metastasis of gliomas, while also influencing the immune status and therapeutic response of the tumor microenvironment. As immunotherapy continues to progress, targeting the cells within the inter-tumor microenvironment emerges as a promising novel therapeutic approach for GBM. By comprehensively understanding and intervening in the intricate cellular interactions within the tumor microenvironment, novel therapeutic modalities may be developed to enhance treatment outcomes for patients with GBM.

Predicting the 90-day prognosis of stereotactic brain hemorrhage patients by multiple machine learning using radiomic features combined with clinical features.

Hypertensive Intracerebral Hemorrhage (HICH) is one of the most common types of cerebral hemorrhage with a high mortality and disability rate. Currently, preoperative non-contrast computed tomography (NCCT) scanning-guided stereotactic hematoma removal has achieved good results in treating HICH, but some patients still have poor prognoses. This study collected relevant clinical and radiomic data by retrospectively collecting and analyzing 432 patients who underwent stereotactic hematoma removal for HICH from January 2017 to December 2020 at the Liuzhou Workers Hospital. The prognosis of patients after 90 days was judged by the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scale and divided into the good prognosis group (mRS ≤ 3) and the poor prognosis group (mRS > 3). The 268 patients were randomly divided into training and test sets in the ratio of 8:2, with 214 patients in the training set and 54 patients in the test set. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) was used to screen radiomics features. They were combining clinical features and radiomic features to build a joint prediction model of the nomogram. The AUCs of the clinical model for predicting different prognoses of patients undergoing stereotactic HICH were 0.957 and 0.922 in the training and test sets, respectively, while the AUCs of the radiomics model were 0.932 and 0.770, respectively, and the AUCs of the combined prediction model for building a nomogram were 0.987 and 0.932, respectively. Compared with a single clinical or radiological model, the nomogram constructed by fusing clinical variables and radiomic features could better identify the prognosis of HICH patients undergoing stereotactic hematoma removal after 90 days.

Corrigendum: Alterations in cellular metabolism under different grades of glioma staging identified based on a multi-omics analysis strategy.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fendo.2023.1292944.].

Unraveling the mechanisms of NK cell dysfunction in aging and Alzheimer's disease: insights from GWAS and single-cell transcriptomics.

Background: Aging is an important factor in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The senescent cells can be recognized and removed by NK cells. However, NK cell function is gradually inactivated with age. Therefore, this study used senescence as an entry point to investigate how NK cells affect AD. Methods: The study validated the correlation between cognition and aging through a prospective cohort of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey database. A cellular trajectory analysis of the aging population was performed using single-cell nuclear transcriptome sequencing data from patients with AD and different ages. The genome-wide association study (GWAS) cohort of AD patients was used as the outcome event, and the expression quantitative trait locus was used as an instrumental variable. Causal associations between genes and AD were analyzed by bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) and co-localization. Finally, clinical cohorts were constructed to validate the expression of key genes. Results: A correlation between cognition and aging was demonstrated using 2,171 older adults over 60 years of age. Gene regulation analysis revealed that most of the highly active transcription factors were concentrated in the NK cell subpopulation of AD. NK cell trajectories were constructed for different age populations. MR and co-localization analyses revealed that CHD6 may be one of the factors influencing AD. Conclusion: We explored different levels of AD and aging from population cohorts, single-cell data, and GWAS cohorts and found that there may be some correlations of NK cells between aging and AD. It also provides some basis for potential causation.

Identification of M5c regulator-medicated methylation modification patterns for prognosis and immune microenvironment in glioma.

Glioma is a common intracranial tumor and is generally associated with poor prognosis. Recently, numerous studies illustrated the importance of 5-methylcytosine (m5C) RNA modification to tumorigenesis. However, the prognostic value and immune correlation of m5C in glioma remain unclear. We obtained RNA expression and clinical information from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and The Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) datasets to analyze. Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) was used to classify patients into two subgroups and compare these patients in survival and clinicopathological characteristics. CIBERSORT and single-sample gene-set algorithm (ssGSEA) methods were used to investigate the relationship between m5C and the immune environment. The Weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) and univariate Cox proportional hazard model (CoxPH) were used to construct a m5C-related signature. Most of m5C RNA methylation regulators presented differential expression and prognostic values. There were obvious relationships between immune infiltration cells and m5C regulators, especially NSUN7. In the m5C-related module from WGCNA, we found SEPT3, CHI3L1, PLBD1, PHYHIPL, SAMD8, RAP1B, B3GNT5, RER1, PTPN7, SLC39A1, and MXI1 were prognostic factors for glioma, and they were used to construct the signature. The great significance of m5C-related signature in predicting the survival of patients with glioma was confirmed in the validation sets and CGGA cohort.

Alterations in cellular metabolism under different grades of glioma staging identified based on a multi-omics analysis strategy.

Glioma is a type of brain tumor closely related to abnormal cell metabolism. Firstly, multiple combinatorial sequencing studies have revealed this relationship. Genomic studies have identified gene mutations and gene expression disorders related to the development of gliomas, which affect cell metabolic pathways. In addition, transcriptome studies have revealed the genes and regulatory networks that regulate cell metabolism in glioma tissues. Metabonomics studies have shown that the metabolic pathway of glioma cells has changed, indicating their distinct energy and nutritional requirements. This paper focuses on the retrospective analysis of multiple groups combined with sequencing to analyze the changes in various metabolites during metabolism in patients with glioma. Finally, the changes in genes, regulatory networks, and metabolic pathways regulating cell metabolism in patients with glioma under different metabolic conditions were discussed. It is also proposed that multi-group metabolic analysis is expected to better understand the mechanism of abnormal metabolism of gliomas and provide more personalized methods and guidance for early diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis evaluation of gliomas.

A Novel Necroptosis-Related lncRNA Signature for Predicting Prognosis and Immune Response of Glioma.

Glioma is one of the most common intracranial malignancies that plagues people around the world. Despite current improvements in treatment, the prognosis of glioma is often unsatisfactory. Necroptosis is a form of programmed cell death. As research progresses, the role of necroptosis in tumors has gradually attracted the attention of researchers. And lncRNA is regarded as a critical role in the development of cancer. Therefore, this study is aimed at establishing a prognostic model based on necroptosis-associated lncRNAs to accurately assess the prognosis and immune response of patients with glioma. The RNA sequences of glioma patients and normal brain samples were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and GTEx databases, respectively. The coexpression analysis was performed to identify the necroptosis-related lncRNAs. Then, we utilized LASSO analysis following univariate Cox analysis to construct a prognostic model. Subsequently, we applied the Kaplan-Meier curve, time-dependent receiver operating characteristics (ROC), and univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses to assess the effectiveness of this model. And the functional enrichment analyses and immune-related analyses were employed to investigate the potential biological functions. A validation set was obtained from the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) database. And qRT-PCR was employed to further validate the expression levels of selected necroptosis-associated lncRNAs. Seven necroptosis-related lncRNAs (FAM13A-AS1, JMJD1C-AS1, LBX2-AS1, ZBTB20-AS4, HAR1A, SNHG14, and LINC00900) were determined to construct a prognostic model. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.871, 0.901, and 0.911 at 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively. The risk score was shown to be an important independent predictor in both univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses. Through functional enrichment analyses, we found that the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were mainly enriched in protein binding and signaling-related biological functions and immune-associated pathways. In conclusion, we established and validated a novel necroptosis-related lncRNA signature, which could accurately predict the overall survival of glioma patients and serve as potential therapeutic targets.

Comprehensive Analysis of the Differential Expression and Prognostic Value of Histone Deacetylases in Glioma.

Gliomas are the most common and aggressive malignancies of the central nervous system. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are important targets in cancer treatment. They regulate complex cellular mechanisms that influence tumor biology and immunogenicity. However, little is known about the function of HDACs in glioma. The Oncomine, Human Protein Atlas, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis, Broad Institute Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia, Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas, OmicShare, cBioPortal, GeneMANIA, STRING, and TIMER databases were utilized to analyze the differential expression, prognostic value, and genetic alteration of HDAC and immune cell infiltration in patients with glioma. HDAC1/2 were considerable upregulated whereas HDAC11 was significantly downregulated in cancer tissues. HDAC1/2/3/4/5/7/8/11 were significantly correlated with the clinical glioma stage. HDAC1/2/3/10 were strongly upregulated in 11 glioma cell lines. High HDCA1/3/7 and low HDAC4/5/11 mRNA levels were significantly associated with overall survival and disease-free survival in glioma. HDAC1/2/3/4/5/7/9/10/11 are potential useful biomarkers for predicting the survival of patients with glioma. The functions of HDACs and 50 neighboring genes were primarily related to transcriptional dysregulation in cancers and the Notch, cGMP-PKG, and thyroid hormone signaling pathways. HDAC expression was significantly correlated with the infiltration of B cells, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in glioma. Our study indicated that HDACs are putative precision therapy targets and prognostic biomarkers of survival in glioma patients.

Identification of diagnostic genes for both Alzheimer's disease and Metabolic syndrome by the machine learning algorithm.

Background: Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease worldwide. Metabolic syndrome is the most common metabolic and endocrine disease in the elderly. Some studies have suggested a possible association between MetS and AD, but few studied genes that have a co-diagnostic role in both diseases. Methods: The microarray data of AD (GSE63060 and GSE63061 were merged after the batch effect was removed) and MetS (GSE98895) in the GEO database were downloaded. The WGCNA was used to identify the co-expression modules related to AD and MetS. RF and LASSO were used to identify the candidate genes. Machine learning XGBoost improves the diagnostic effect of hub gene in AD and MetS. The CIBERSORT algorithm was performed to assess immune cell infiltration MetS and AD samples and to investigate the relationship between biomarkers and infiltrating immune cells. The peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) single-cell RNA (scRNA) sequencing data from patients with AD and normal individuals were visualized with the Seurat standard flow dimension reduction clustering the metabolic pathway activity changes each cell with ssGSEA. Results: The brown module was identified as the significant module with AD and MetS. GO analysis of shared genes showed that intracellular transport and establishment of localization in cell and organelle organization were enriched in the pathophysiology of AD and MetS. By using RF and Lasso learning methods, we finally obtained eight diagnostic genes, namely ARHGAP4, SNRPG, UQCRB, PSMA3, DPM1, MED6, RPL36AL and RPS27A. Their AUC were all greater than 0.7. Higher immune cell infiltrations expressions were found in the two diseases and were positively linked to the characteristic genes. The scRNA-seq datasets finally obtained seven cell clusters. Seven major cell types including CD8 T cell, monocytes, T cells, NK cell, B cells, dendritic cells and macrophages were clustered according to immune cell markers. The ssGSEA revealed that immune-related gene (SNRPG) was significantly regulated in the glycolysis-metabolic pathway. Conclusion: We identified genes with common diagnostic effects on both MetS and AD, and found genes involved in multiple metabolic pathways associated with various immune cells.

SPOCD1 promotes the proliferation and metastasis of glioma cells by up-regulating PTX3.

Gliomas are the most prevalent type of primary brain tumors in adults, accounting for more than 40% of neoplasms in the central nervous system. The spen paralogue and orthologue C-terminal domain containing 1 (SPOCD1) has been recently identified and found to discriminate progressive from non-progressive bladder cancers. In this study, we detected high-level of SPOCD1 expression in glioma and its high expression significantly associated with advanced tumor grade and poor prognosis. In vitro assays showed that knockdown of SPOCD1 significantly inhibited cell proliferation and colony formation capacities in U373 and U87 cells. In a xenograft model of glioma, SPOCD1 was also found to inhibit tumor growth. In addition, knockdown of SPOCD1 was shown to inhibit cell migration and invasion in glioma U373 and U87 cells. SPOCD1 positively regulated the expression of Pentraxin 3 (PTX3), whereas overexpression of PTX3 attenuated SPOCD1 knockdown-mediated inhibition of cell proliferation, migration and invasion in glioma cells. Our observations suggest that SPOCD1 promotes the proliferation and metastasis of glioma cells through regulating PTX3. Our data might provide novel evidence for the diagnosis and treatment of glioma in clinic.

[Risk factors analysis for low back pain in patients with multiple sclerosis].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate musculoskeletal disorders and risk factors of low back pain in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. METHODS: In this study, patients in our hospital with confirmed MS with an expanded disabilitystatus scale (EDSS) score between 4 to 7 were selected. Data of MS history, pain, musculoskeletal disorders, muscle strength and spasticity in lower limbs were collected. RESULTS: Among 190 patients, there were 61 males and 129 females, with an average age of(54.9±9.2) years old. The mean disease duration was(19.3±9.9) years, and the median EDSS score was 6. Forty-two patients were relapsing-remitting type, 45 patients were primary progressive type, and 93 patients were secondary progressive type. The most common musculoskeletal disorders were described as follows:knee osteoarthritis (15 cases), claw toe (13 cases) and genu recurvatum (12 cases). Seventy-nine patients with prevalence low back pain was higher than in patients with a progressive type(secondary: OR=2.958, P=0.007 9, primary(OR=2.629, P=0.039 8) and in patients who had a visual dysfunction at EDSS score(OR=1.411, P=0.012 4). The prevalence was reduced in male patients(OR=0.306, P=0.001 4). CONCLUSIONS: The progressive type of MS and visual dysfunction increased the risk of low back pain in these patients.

Formononetin sensitizes glioma cells to doxorubicin through preventing EMT via inhibition of histone deacetylase 5.

Chemoresistance is a major obstacle to successful chemotherapy for glioma. Formononetin is a novel herbal isoflavonoid isolated from Astragalus membranaceus and possesses antitumorigenic properties. In the present study, we investigated the anti-proliferative effects of formononetin on human glioma cells, and further elucidated the molecular mechanism underlying the anti-tumor property. We found that formononetin enhanced doxorubicin cytotoxicity in glioma cells. Combined treatment with formononetin reversed the doxorubicin-induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in tumor cells. Moreover, we found that formononetin treatment significantly decreased the expression of HDAC5. Overexpression of HDAC5 diminished the suppressive effects of formononetin on glioma cell viability. Furthermore, knockdown of HDAC5 by siRNA inhibited the doxorubicin-induced EMT in glioma cells. Taken together, these results demonstrated that formononetin-combined therapy may enhance the therapeutic efficacy of doxorubicin in glioma cells by preventing EMT through inhibition of HDAC5.

Histone deacetylase 5 promotes the proliferation of glioma cells by upregulation of Notch 1.

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) constitute a family of enzymes that play important roles in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression and contribute to the growth, differentiation and apoptosis of cancer cells. However, the biological function of HDAC5 in glioma cells has not been fully understood. In the present study, we found that the mRNA and protein levels of HDAC5 are increased in human glioma tissues and cell lines. In addition, overexpression of HDAC5 promoted proliferation of glioma cells, as measured by the MTT assay. By contrast, HDAC5 gene silencing using small interfering RNA (siRNA) inhibited cell proliferation. Furthermore, we demonstrated that HDAC5 enhances Notch 1 expression at both the mRNA and the protein level in glioma cell lines. Taken together, these results demonstrated, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, that HDAC5 promotes glioma cell proliferation, and suggest that this effect involves the upregulation of Notch 1. Therefore, our study may provide a novel therapeutic target for treatment of gliomas.