Serum metabolomic analysis reveals key metabolites in drug treatment of central precocious puberty in female children.

Precocious puberty (PP) is a common condition among children. According to the pathogenesis and clinical manifestations, PP can be divided into central precocious puberty (CPP, gonadotropin dependent), peripheral precocious puberty (PPP, gonadotropin independent), and incomplete precocious puberty (IPP). Identification of the variations in key metabolites involved in CPP and their underlying biological mechanisms has increased the understanding of the pathological processes of this condition. However, little is known about the role of metabolite variations in the drug treatment of CPP. Moreover, it remains unclear whether the understanding of the crucial metabolites and pathways can help predict disease progression after pharmacological therapy of CPP. In this study, systematic metabolomic analysis was used to examine three groups, namely, healthy control (group N, 30 healthy female children), CPP (group S, 31 female children with CPP), and treatment (group R, 29 female children) groups. A total of 14 pathways (the top two pathways were aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis and phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan biosynthesis) were significantly enriched in children with CPP. In addition, two short peptides (His-Arg-Lys-Glu and Lys-Met-His) were found to play a significant role in CPP. Various metabolites associated with different pathways including amino acids, PE [19:1(9Z)0:0], tumonoic acid I, palmitic amide, and linoleic acid-biotin were investigated in the serum of children in all groups. A total of 45 metabolites were found to interact with a chemical drug [a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analog] and a traditional Chinese medicinal formula (DBYW). This study helps to understand metabolic variations in CPP after drug therapy, and further investigation may help develop individualized treatment approaches for CPP in clinical practice.

The inhibition of microRNA-203 on ischemic reperfusion injury after total knee arthroplasty via suppressing MYD88-mdiated toll-like receptor signaling pathway.

Ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI), a complex phenomenon often encountered in surgery, can lead to local and distant tissue destruction and sometimes even death. microRNA-203 (miR-203) has been reported to negatively regulate ischemia induced microglia activation with a feedback to myeloid differentiation primary-response gene 88 (MYD88). Accordingly, our study is to verify the effect of miR-203 and MYD88 on mice in IRI after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). After establishment of IRI mouse model, heart rate (HR) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) in mice were determined. The functional role of miR-203 in IRI was determined using ectopic expression, knockdown and reporter assay experiments. Levels of interferon γ (IFN-γ), interleukin 10 (IL-10), interleukin 6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were detected, and expression of miR-203, MYD88, toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), Faslg, Cleaved-Caspase-3, B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) and Bcl-2-associated X protein (Bax) was evaluated. Initially, HR and MAP were decreased in IRI mice. Forced expression of miR-203 and silencing of MYD88 increased levels of SOD and IL-10 but decreased levels of MDA, CK, LDH, TNF-α, IL-6 and IFN-γ. Additionally, forced expression of miR-203 and silencing of MYD88 increased Bcl-2 expression but decreased MYD88, TLR4, Cleaved-Caspase-3, Falsg and Bax expression. MYD88, a target gene of miR-203, was decreased following miR-203 promotion, while the TLR signaling pathway inactivation occurred following MYD88 silencing. Generally, our study demonstrated the protective effects of miR-203 on mice with IRI after TKA through inhibiting TLR signaling pathway by negatively regulating MYD88.

Downregulation of signal transduction and STAT3 expression exacerbates oxidative stress mediated by NLRP3 inflammasome.

Activated nucleotide binding to the oligonucleotide receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome is possibly involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease through oxidative stress and neurogenic inflammation. Low expression of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) gene may promote the occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases to some extent. To clarify the roles of the NLRP3 inflammasome and STAT3 expression in oxidative stress, (1) SHSY5Y cells were incubated with 1 mM H2O2 to induce oxidative stress injury, and the expression of human-cell-specific signal transduction, STAT3-shRNA silencing signal transduction and STAT3 were detected. Cells were pretreated with Ca2+ chelator BAPATA-AM (0.1 mM) for 30 minutes as a control. (2) Western blot assay was used to analyze the expression of caspase-1, NLRP3, signal transduction and STAT3. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to analyze interleukin-1ß levels. Flow cytometry was carried out to calculate the number of apoptotic cells. We found that H2O2 treatment activated NLRP3 inflammasomes and decreased phosphorylation of signal transduction and STAT3 serine 727. BAPTA-AM pretreatment abolished the H2O2-induced activation of NLRP3 inflammasomes, caspase-1 expression, interleukin-1ß expression and apoptosis in SHSY5Y cells, and had no effect in cells with downregulated STAT3 expression by RNAi. The findings suggest that downregulation of signal transduction and STAT3 expression may enhance the oxidative stress mediated by NLRP3, which may not depend on the Ca2+ signaling pathway.