Anisodamine alleviates lipopolysaccharide-induced pancreatic acinar cell injury through NLRP3 inflammasome and NF-κB signaling pathway.

Purpose: Anisodamine (An) has anti-inflammatory effects, but its role in acute pancreatitis is still unknown. This study aimed to explore the action mechanism of An pretreatment in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced pancreatic acinar cells, hoping to provide a research basis for the disease treatment.Materials and methods: Pancreatic acinar cells were pretreated with An at different concentrations and then induced by LPS. The viability and apoptosis of the treated cells were measured by Cell Counting Kit-8 and flow cytometry. The releases of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß), and IL-18 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The expressions of thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP), apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase recruitment domain (ASC), NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3), Caspase-1, p65, and inhibitor of kappa B alpha (IκBα) in the treated cells were detected by Western blot and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction assay.Results: LPS promoted apoptosis of pancreatic acinar cells, suppressed cell viability, increased TNF-α, IL-1ß, and IL-18 releases and the expression levels of TXNIP, ASC, NLRP3, Caspase-1, p-p65, and p-IκBα, however, such effects of LPS could be alleviated by An pretreatment with the strongest effect when the concentration of An was set at 100 µg/mL. Moreover, overexpressed NLRP3 aggravated the effects of LPS in pancreatic acinar cells, which could be reversed by pretreatment of 100 µg/mL An.Conclusion: An pretreatment attenuated LPS-induced apoptosis and inflammatory response of pancreatic acinar cells through suppressing NLRP3 and inactivating NF-κB signaling pathway, thus, it could be explored as a potential therapy for treating acute pancreatitis.

Subnano Amorphous Fe-Based Clusters with High Mass Activity for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Reaction.

The development of cost-effective and efficient oxygen-relative electrocatalysts with high mass activity is extremely critical for modern sustainable fuel cells. Here, we present a new type of subnano amorphous transition-metal clusters supported on a hierarchical carbon framework as a promising oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst, synthesized by a novel "amino-induced spatial confinement" strategy. This developed Fe subnano-cluster/3D-C could deliver outstanding ORR performance with a large mass activity of ∼8600 A gFe-1 at a half-wave potential of 0.92 V, ∼10 times that of the benchmarking Pt/C electrocatalyst. The atomic characterizations and theoretical calculations jointly reveal the robust surface-covalent Fe-N bonds, and the synergistic effect of hetero Fe2+/0 species is essentially beneficial for the adsorption of *O2 and the formation of key *O intermediate during the ORR process, contributing to high oxygen-relative electrocatalytic activity for subnano amorphous Fe clusters.