Corrigendum: Microglia Mediate the Occurrence and Development of Alzheimer's Disease Through Ligand-Receptor Axis Communication.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.731180.].

Microglia Mediate the Occurrence and Development of Alzheimer's Disease Through Ligand-Receptor Axis Communication.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a common neurodegenerative disease. Its onset is insidious and its progression is slow, making diagnosis difficult. In addition, its underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, clustering analysis was performed on single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from the prefrontal cortex of 48 AD patients. Each sample module was identified to be a specific AD cell type, eight main brain cell types were identified, and the dysfunctional evolution of each cell type was further explored by pseudo-time analysis. Correlation analysis was then used to explore the relationship between AD cell types and pathological characteristics. In particular, intercellular communication between neurons and glial cells in AD patients was investigated by cell communication analysis. In patients, neuronal cells and glial cells significantly correlated with pathological features, and glial cells appear to play a key role in the development of AD through ligand-receptor axis communication. Marker genes involved in communication between these two cell types were identified using five types of modeling: logistic regression, multivariate logistic regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and support vector machine (SVM). LASSO modeling identified CXCR4, EGFR, MAP4K4, and IGF1R as key genes in this communication. Our results support the idea that microglia play a role in the occurrence and development of AD through ligand-receptor axis communication. In particular, our analyses identify CXCR4, EGFR, MAP4K4, and IGF1R as potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets in AD.

Manganese (II) chloride leads to dopaminergic neurotoxicity by promoting mitophagy through BNIP3-mediated oxidative stress in SH-SY5Y cells.

BACKGROUND: Manganese overexposure can induce neurotoxicity, lead to manganism and result in clinical manifestations similar to those of parkinsonism. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is still unclear. This study demonstrated that MnCl2 induces mitophagy and leads to neurotoxicity by promoting BNIP3-mediated reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. METHODS: Human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells were used throughout our experiments. Cell viability was detected by cell proliferation/toxicity test kits. Mitochondrial membrane potential was measured by flow cytometry. ROS generation was detected using a microplate reader. Protein levels were evaluated by Western blot. Transmission electron microscopy was used to evaluate mitochondrial morphology. Co-immunoprecipitation was used to verify the interaction between BNIP3 and LC3. RESULTS: MnCl2 led to loss of mitochondrial membrane potential and apoptosis of SH-SY5Y cells by enhancing expression of BNIP3 and conversion of LC3-I to LC3-II. Moreover, MnCl2 reduced expression of the mitochondrial marker protein TOMM20 and promoted interaction between BNIP3 and LC3. The results also indicated that a decrease in BNIP3 expression reduced the mitochondrial membrane potential loss, attenuated apoptosis and reduced mitochondrial autophagosome formation in SH-SY5Y cells after MnCl2 treatment. Finally, we found that manganese-induced ROS generation could be reversed by the antioxidant N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) or silencing BNIP3 expression. CONCLUSIONS: BNIP3 mediates MnCl2-induced mitophagy and neurotoxicity in dopaminergic SH-SY5Y cells through ROS. Thus, BNIP3 contributes to manganese-induced neurotoxicity by functioning as a mitophagy receptor protein.

A Potential Autophagy-Related Competing Endogenous RNA Network and Corresponding Diagnostic Efficacy in Schizophrenia.

Competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) and autophagy were related to neurological diseases. But the relationship among ceRNA, autophagy and Schizophrenia (SZ) was not clear. In this study, we obtained gene expression profile of SZ patients (GSE38484, GSE54578, and GSE16930) from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Then we screened the autophagy-related differentially expressed lncRNA, miRNA, and mRNA (DElncRNA, DEmiRNA, and DEmRNA) combined with Gene database from The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). In addition, we performed enrichment analysis. The result showed that biological processes (BPs) mainly were associated with cellular responses to oxygen concentration. The enriched pathways mainly included ErbB, AMPK, mTOR signaling pathway and cell cycle. Furthermore, we constructed autophagy-related ceRNA network based on the TargetScan database. Moreover, we explored the diagnostic efficiency of lncRNA, miRNA and mRNA in ceRNA, through gene set variation analysis (GSVA). The result showed that the diagnostic efficiency was robust, especially miRNA (AUC = 0.884). The miRNA included hsa-miR-423-5p, hsa-miR-4532, hsa-miR-593-3p, hsa-miR-618, hsa-miR-4723-3p, hsa-miR-4640-3p, hsa-miR-296-5p, and hsa-miR-3943. The result of this study may be helpful for deepening the pathophysiology of SZ. In addition, our finding may provide a guideline for the clinical diagnosis of SZ.

Effect of endoplasmic reticulum stress involved in manganese­induced neurotoxicity in rats.

The aim of the present study was to probe the mechanism of apoptosis induced by endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) in manganese­induced rats. A total of 60 Sprague­Dawley rats were randomly divided into a Vehicle group, LoMag group, HiMag group, and HiMag + 4­phenylbutyrate (PBA) group. Manganese content was measured by Inductively Coupled Plasma­Atomic Emission Spectrometry. Pathogenic morphology, the cellular structure of the striatum and ER were observed by hematoxylin and eosin staining and electron microscopy. The TUNEL method was used to examine neuronal apoptosis in the rat striatum. The expression levels of glucose­regulated protein 78KD (GRP78), C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP), c­Jun N­terminal kinase (JNK) and caspase­12 were analyzed by western blot analysis. The results revealed that striatal manganese concentrations in the LoMag and HiMag groups were higher than that in the Vehicle group (P<0.01). Rat striatal neuronal structure and apoptotic rates in the LoMag and HiMag groups were higher than those in the Vehicle group (P<0.05). 4­PBA treatment effectively reduced the apoptotic cell number (P<0.05). In addition, ER swelling and vacuolization in the HiMag + PBA group was reduced compared with that in the HiMag group. In addition, the protein expression levels of GRP78, CHOP, JNK and caspase­12 in the LoMag and HiMag groups were higher than those in the Vehicle group (P<0.05). However, the expression of these four proteins was reduced by 4­PBA treatment (P<0.05). In conclusion, 4­PBA significantly reduced the damage and apoptosis induced by manganese exposure in rats.