scholarly journals Electroacupuncture Alleviates Experimental Chronic Inflammatory Pain by Inhibiting Calcium Voltage-Gated Channel-Mediated Inflammation

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Zhou ◽  
Ying Jin ◽  
Ruijie Ma ◽  
Hongyun Song ◽  
Qin Chen ◽  
...  

Background. Both experimental and clinical studies have shown that electroacupuncture (EA) administration ameliorates chronic inflammatory pain (CIP). However, the multifaceted mechanism underlying the effects of EA on CIP is poorly understood. In this study, the mRNA transcriptome was used to study various therapeutic targets of EA. Methods. Using RNA-sequencing, protein-coding mRNA expression profiles of the L4-L5 dorsal root ganglion (DRG) were examined in the control (CN), complete Freund’s adjuvant- (CFA-) induced CIP, and EA-treated CIP groups. A series of bioinformatics analyses was performed; “EA-reversed upregulated genes with CIP” (up-DEGs) and “EA-reversed downregulated genes with CIP” (down-DEGs) were identified. Thereafter, based on up-DEGs and down-DEGs, biological functions and signaling pathways were enriched using gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses. Results. In total, 189 DEGs were identified, including 134 up- and 55 down-DEGs, which were enriched in arachidonic acid metabolism (rno00590), glutamatergic synapse (rno04724), serotonergic synapse (rno04726), FoxO signaling pathway (rno04068), insulin signaling pathway (rno04910), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (rno05014), cholinergic synapse (rno04725), ECM-receptor interaction (rno04512), and choline metabolism in cancer (rno05231). Conclusion. We identified a few GOs, pathways, and genes that could play key roles in the amelioration of CIP by EA. Hence, this study may provide a theoretical basis for CIP amelioration by EA.

BMC Genomics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruining Liu ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
Haoli Ma ◽  
Xianlong Zhou ◽  
Pengcheng Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Ventilator-induced diaphragmatic dysfunction (VIDD) is associated with weaning difficulties, intensive care unit hospitalization (ICU), infant mortality, and poor long-term clinical outcomes. The expression patterns of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and mRNAs in the diaphragm in a rat controlled mechanical ventilation (CMV) model, however, remain to be investigated. Results The diaphragms of five male Wistar rats in a CMV group and five control Wistar rats were used to explore lncRNA and mRNA expression profiles by RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq). Muscle force measurements and immunofluorescence (IF) staining were used to verify the successful establishment of the CMV model. A total of 906 differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs and 2,139 DE mRNAs were found in the CMV group. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to determine the biological functions or pathways of these DE mRNAs. Our results revealed that these DE mRNAs were related mainly related to complement and coagulation cascades, the PPAR signaling pathway, cholesterol metabolism, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, and the AMPK signaling pathway. Some DE lncRNAs and DE mRNAs determined by RNA-seq were validated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), which exhibited trends similar to those observed by RNA-sEq. Co-expression network analysis indicated that three selected muscle atrophy-related mRNAs (Myog, Trim63, and Fbxo32) were coexpressed with relatively newly discovered DE lncRNAs. Conclusions This study provides a novel perspective on the molecular mechanism of DE lncRNAs and mRNAs in a CMV model, and indicates that the inflammatory signaling pathway and lipid metabolism may play important roles in the pathophysiological mechanism and progression of VIDD.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Yinan Chai ◽  
Lihan Xu ◽  
Rui He ◽  
Liangjun Zhong ◽  
Yuying Wang

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary metastasis is the most frequent cause of death in osteosarcoma (OS) patients. Recently, several bioinformatics studies specific to pulmonary metastatic osteosarcoma (PMOS) have been applied to identify genetic alterations. However, the interpretation and reliability of the results obtained were limited for the independent database analysis. OBJECTIVE: The expression profiles and key pathways specific to PMOS remain to be comprehensively explored. Therefore, in our study, three original datasets of GEO database were selected. METHODS: Initially, three microarray datasets (GSE14359, GSE14827, and GSE85537) were downloaded from the GEO database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between PMOS and nonmetastatic osteosarcoma (NMOS) were identified and mined using DAVID. Subsequently, GO and KEGG pathway analyses were carried out for DEGs. Corresponding PPI network of DEGs was constructed based on the data collected from STRING datasets. The network was visualized with Cytoscape software, and ten hub genes were selected from the network. Finally, survival analysis of these hub genes also used the TARGET database. RESULTS: In total, 569 upregulated and 1238 downregulated genes were filtered as DEGs between PMOS and NMOS. Based on the GO analysis result, these DEGs were significantly enriched in the anatomical structure development, extracellular matrix, biological adhesion, and cell adhesion terms. Based on the KEGG pathway analysis result, these DEGs were mainly enriched in the pathways in cancer, PI3K-Akt signaling, MAPK signaling, focal adhesion, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, and IL-17 signaling. Hub genes (ANXA1 and CXCL12) were significantly associated with overall survival time in OS patient. CONCLUSION: Our results may provide new insight into pulmonary metastasis of OS. However, experimental studies remain necessary to elucidate the biological function and mechanism underlying PMOS.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-454
Author(s):  
Chang Liu ◽  
Cornelius Tlotliso Sello ◽  
Yujian Sui ◽  
Jingtao Hu ◽  
Shaokang Chen ◽  
...  

In order to enrich the Anser cygnoides genome and identify the gene expression profiles of primary and secondary feather follicles development, de novo transcriptome assembly of skin tissues was established by analyzing three developmental stages at embryonic day 14, 18, and 28 (E14, E18, E28). Sequencing output generated 436,730,608 clean reads from nine libraries and de novo assembled into 56,301 unigenes. There were 2,298, 9,423 and 12,559 unigenes showing differential expression in three stages respectively. Furthermore, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were functionally classified according to genes ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and series-cluster analysis. Relevant specific GO terms such as epithelium development, regulation of keratinocyte proliferation, morphogenesis of an epithelium were identified. In all, 15,144 DEGs were clustered into eight profiles with distinct expression patterns and 2,424 DEGs were assigned to 198 KEGG pathways. Skin development related pathways (mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway, extra-cellular matrix -receptor interaction, Wingless-type signaling pathway) and genes (delta like canonical Notch ligand 1, fibroblast growth factor 2, Snail family transcriptional repressor 2, bone morphogenetic protein 6, polo like kinase 1) were identified, and eight DEGs were selected to verify the reliability of transcriptome results by real-time quantitative PCR. The findings of this study will provide the key insights into the complicated molecular mechanism and breeding techniques underlying the developmental characteristics of skin and feather follicles in Anser cygnoides.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zheng-yuan Wu ◽  
Gang Du ◽  
Yi-cai Lin

Abstract Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common chronic degenerative joint disorder globally that is characterized by synovitis, cartilage degeneration, joint space stenosis, and sub-cartilage bone hyperplasia. However, the pathophysiologic mechanisms of OA have not been thoroughly investigated. Methods In this study, we conducted various bioinformatics analyses to identify hub biomarkers and immune infiltration in OA. The gene expression profiles of synovial tissues from 29 healthy controls and 36 OA samples were obtained from the gene expression omnibus database to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The CIBERSORT algorithm was used to explore the association between immune infiltration and arthritis. Results Eighteen hub DEGs were identified as critical biomarkers for OA. Through gene ontology and pathway enrichment analyses, it was found that these DEGs were primarily involved in PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and Rap1 signaling pathway. Furthermore, immune infiltration analysis revealed differences in immune infiltration between patients with OA and healthy controls. The hub gene ZNF160 was closely related to immune cells, especially mast cell activation in OA. Conclusion Overall, this study presented a novel method to identify hub DEGs and their correlation with immune infiltration, which may provide novel insights into the diagnosis and treatment of patients with OA.


Cancers ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 256
Author(s):  
Annemarie Schwarz ◽  
Ingo Roeder ◽  
Michael Seifert

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a slowly progressing blood cancer that primarily affects elderly people. Without successful treatment, CML progressively develops from the chronic phase through the accelerated phase to the blast crisis, and ultimately to death. Nowadays, the availability of targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapies has led to long-term disease control for the vast majority of patients. Nevertheless, there are still patients that do not respond well enough to TKI therapies and available targeted therapies are also less efficient for patients in accelerated phase or blast crises. Thus, a more detailed characterization of molecular alterations that distinguish the different CML phases is still very important. We performed an in-depth bioinformatics analysis of publicly available gene expression profiles of the three CML phases. Pairwise comparisons revealed many differentially expressed genes that formed a characteristic gene expression signature, which clearly distinguished the three CML phases. Signaling pathway expression patterns were very similar between the three phases but differed strongly in the number of affected genes, which increased with the phase. Still, significant alterations of MAPK, VEGF, PI3K-Akt, adherens junction and cytokine receptor interaction signaling distinguished specific phases. Our study also suggests that one can consider the phase-wise CML development as a three rather than a two-step process. This is in accordance with the phase-specific expression behavior of 24 potential major regulators that we predicted by a network-based approach. Several of these genes are known to be involved in the accumulation of additional mutations, alterations of immune responses, deregulation of signaling pathways or may have an impact on treatment response and survival. Importantly, some of these genes have already been reported in relation to CML (e.g., AURKB, AZU1, HLA-B, HLA-DMB, PF4) and others have been found to play important roles in different leukemias (e.g., CDCA3, RPL18A, PRG3, TLX3). In addition, increased expression of BCL2 in the accelerated and blast phase indicates that venetoclax could be a potential treatment option. Moreover, a characteristic signaling pathway signature with increased expression of cytokine and ECM receptor interaction pathway genes distinguished imatinib-resistant patients from each individual CML phase. Overall, our comparative analysis contributes to an in-depth molecular characterization of similarities and differences of the CML phases and provides hints for the identification of patients that may not profit from an imatinib therapy, which could support the development of additional treatment strategies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Xie ◽  
Xiao-hui Ding ◽  
Ce Yuan ◽  
Jin-jiang Li ◽  
Zhao-yang Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: To identify candidate key genes and pathways related to mast cells resting in meningioma and the underlying molecular mechanisms of meningioma.Methods: Gene expression profiles of GSE43290 and GSE16581 datasets were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. GO and KEGG pathway enrichments of DEGs were analyzed using the ClusterProfiler package in R. The protein-protein interaction network (PPI), and TF-miRNA- mRNA co-expression networks were constructed. Further, the difference in immune infiltration was investigated using the CIBERSORT algorithm.Results: A total of 1499 DEGs were identified between tumor and normal controls. The analysis of the immune cell infiltration landscape showed that the probability of distribution of memory B cells, regulatory T cells (Tregs), and resting mast cells in tumor samples were significantly higher than those in the controls. Moreover, through WGCNA analysis, the module related to mast cells resting contained 158 DEGs, and KEGG pathway analysis revealed that the DEGs were dominant in the TNF signaling pathway, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, and IL-17 signaling pathway. Survival analysis of hub genes related to mast cells resting showed that the risk model was constructed based on 9 key genes. The TF-miRNA- mRNA co-regulation network, including MYC-miR-145-5p, TNFAIP3-miR-29c-3p, and TNFAIP3-hsa-miR-335-3p, were obtained. Further, 36 nodes and 197 interactions in the PPI network were identified. Conclusions: The results of this study revealed candidate key genes, miRNAs, and pathways related to mast cells resting involved in meningioma development, providing potential therapeutic targets for meningioma treatment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Yanmin Lyu ◽  
Xiangjing Chen ◽  
Qing Xia ◽  
Shanshan Zhang ◽  
Chengfang Yao

Background. Pinellia ternata (PT), a medicinal plant, has had an extensive application in the treatment of asthma in China, whereas its underlying pharmacological mechanisms remain unclear. Methods. Firstly, a network pharmacology method was adopted to collect activated components of PT from Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP). Targets of PT were assessed by exploiting the PharmMapper website; asthma-related targets were collected from the OMIM website, and target-target interaction networks were built. Secondly, critical nodes exhibiting high possibility were identified as the hub nodes in the network, which were employed to conduct Gene Ontology (GO) comment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) signaling pathway enrichment analysis. Finally, the tissue expression profiles of key candidate genes were identified by the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, and the therapeutic effect of PT was verified by an animal experiment. Results. 57 achievable targets of PT on asthma were confirmed as hub nodes through using the network pharmacology method. As revealed from the KEGG enrichment analysis, the signaling pathways were notably enriched in pathways of the T-cell receptor signaling pathway, JAK-STAT signaling pathway, and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. The expression profiles of candidate genes including Mmp2, Nr3c1, il-10, il-4, il-13, il-17a, il-2, tlr4, tlr9, ccl2, csf2, and vefgα were identified. Moreover, according to transcriptome RNA sequencing data from lung tissues of allergic mice compared to normal mice, the mRNA level of Mmp2 and il-4 was upregulated ( P < 0.001 ). In animal experiments, PT could alleviate the allergic response of mice by inhibiting the activation of T-helper type 2 (TH2) cells and the expression of Mmp2 and il-4. Conclusions. Our study provides candidate genes that may be either used for future studies related to diagnosis/prognosis or as targets for asthma management. Besides, animal experiments showed that PT could treat asthma by regulating the expression of Mmp2 and il-4.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhe Wang ◽  
Chenhao Jiang ◽  
Xuxuan Zhang ◽  
Yingna Zhang ◽  
Yan Ren ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a disease that causes fatal disorders including severe pneumonia. Our study aimed to utilize bioinformatics method to analyze the expression profiling by high throughput sequencing in human bronchial organoids/primary human airway epithelial infected with SARS-CoV-2 to identify the potentially crucial genes and pathways associated with COVID-19.Methods: We analyzed microarray datasets GSE153970 and GSE150819 derived from the GEO database. Firstly, the Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in human bronchial organoids/primary human airway epithelial infected with SARS-CoV-2. Next, the DEGs were used for GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. Then, the PPI network was constructed and Cytoscape was used to find the key genes.Results: Gene expression profiles of GSE153970 and GSE150819, in all 12 samples were analyzed. A total of 145 DEGs and 5 hub genes were identified in SARS-CoV-2. Meanwhile, we found that the 145 genes are associated with immune responses and the top 5 hub genes including CXCL8, CXCL1, CXCL2, CCL20, and CSF2 were mainly related to leukocyte migration, endoplasmic reticulum lumen, receptor ligand activity. In addition, the results also showed that the hub genes were associated with Cytokine−cytokine receptor interaction, IL−17 signaling pathway, and Rheumatoid arthritis in SARS-CoV-2 infection.Conclusion: The five crucial genes consisting of CXCL8, CXCL1, CXCL2, CCL20, and CSF2 were considered as hub genes of SARS-CoV-2, which may be used as diagnostic biomarkers or molecular targets for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2. It is evidenced that bioinformatics analyses in SARS-CoV-2 can be useful for understanding the underlying molecular mechanism and exploring effective therapeutic targets.


Blood ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 110 (11) ◽  
pp. 4142-4142
Author(s):  
Nancy S. Day ◽  
Janet Ayello ◽  
Ian Waxman ◽  
Evan Shereck ◽  
Catherine McGuinn ◽  
...  

Abstract The prognosis and treatment of both major forms of advanced childhood B-NHL (BL and DLBCL) is similar with short and intensive multi-agent chemotherapy (Cairo/Patte et al., Blood, 2007 and Patte/Cairo et al., Blood, 2007). Despite both BL and DLBCL being germinal center derived, our recent cytogenetic results of BL vs DLBCL in the FAB LMB 96 study have demonstrated significant differences in secondary chromosomal aberrations in BL vs DLBCL and a differential prognosis based on secondary cytogenetic findings (Poirel/Cairo/Patte, Blood, 2003a). Thus, we sought to identify genes that could uniquely differentiate childhood BL vs DLBCL and discover potential genetic mechanisms of differential molecular pathogenesis and to determine the signal pathways that contribute to the genetic disparity between these two histological types of childhood B-NHL. Nine BL (7 patient samples and 2 cell lines, Raji and Ramos) and 3 DLBCL (1 patient sample and 2 cell lines, Pfeiffer and DB) were compared. Total RNA was isolated, reverse transcribed to cDNA biotinylated cRNA and hybridized to Affymetrix U133A_2 as we have previously described (Jiang/Cairo et al., Journal of Immunology, 2004). Data were analyzed using Agilent GeneSpring 7.3. Signal intensities were compared using one way ANOVA and Welch Test for statistical analysis. Two-fold changes between BL and DLBCL were considered as significant (p<0.05). KEGG Pathways were evaluated for the genes identified. There were 120 genes over-expressed and 217 genes under-expressed in BL vs DLBCL. BL expressed significantly higher level of Ki-67 (a measure of lymphoma-cell proliferation) than DLBCL (2.68F). BL also expressed higher level of the pro-apoptotic gene, p53 compared to DLBCL (1.46F). Over-expressed genes in BL vs DLBCL included TNFSF10 (11.87F), RHOQ (3.16F), PIP5K1B (5.22F) among many others. The genes significantly under-expressed in BL vs DLBCL included PIGL (0.45F), Inositol (myo)-1 (or 4)-monophosphatase 1 (IMPA1; 0.28F), cAMP-dependent regulatory type I, alpha protein kinase (PRKAR1A; 0.37F) among many others. TNFSF10 induces apoptosis in transformed and tumor cells and is known to participate in pathways including cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction and induction of apoptosis through DR3 and DR4/5 death receptors. PIP5K1B is involved in the Rho signaling pathway and PIGL catalyzes the second step of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) biosynthesis. Since activation of IL3R-mediated cAMP-dependent protein kinase leads to increased cell survival, we searched gene expression profiles in BL vs DLBCL that were involved in IL signaling pathways. The genes that were identified to be over-expressed in BL vs DLBCL included IL2RG (2.24F), IL8RB, IL18 receptor accessory protein (IL18RAP), IL18, IL18R1, and IL1R2 (natural log values of 11.11, 22.95, 2.16, 1.73 and 11.84, respectively in BL vs non-detectable values in DLBCL). Taken together, since IL1, IL2, IL8, and IL18 all belong to IL1 super family, these results suggest significant involvement of TNF (TRAIL) and IL1 super family via cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction and activation of the Rho signaling pathway in Burkitt vs DLBCL lymphomagenesis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 5259
Author(s):  
Yongjing Li ◽  
Huiru Fu ◽  
Fuqiang Zhang ◽  
Liting Ren ◽  
Jing Tian ◽  
...  

The involvement of insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling (IIS) pathways in the growth regulation of marine invertebrates remains largely unexplored. In this study, we used a fast-growing Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) variety “Haida No.1” as the material with which to unravel the role of IIS systems in growth regulation in oysters. Systematic bioinformatics analyses allowed us to identify major components of the IIS signaling pathway and insulin-like peptide receptor (ILPR)-mediated signaling pathways, including PI3K-AKT, RAS-MAPK, and TOR, in C. gigas. The expression levels of the major genes in IIS and its downstream signaling pathways were significantly higher in “Haida No.1” than in wild oysters, suggesting their involvement in the growth regulation of C. gigas. The expression profiles of IIS and its downstream signaling pathway genes were significantly altered by nutrient abundance and culture temperature. These results suggest that the IIS signaling pathway coupled with the ILPR-mediated signaling pathways orchestrate the regulation of energy metabolism to control growth in Pacific oysters.


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