Study of the inflammatory activating process in the early stage of Fusobacterium nucleatum infected PDLSCs / 国际口腔科学杂志·英文版

Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) is an early pathogenic colonizer in periodontitis, but the host response to infection with this pathogen remains unclear. In this study, we built an F. nucleatum infectious model with human periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs) and showed that F. nucleatum could inhibit proliferation, and facilitate apoptosis, ferroptosis, and inflammatory cytokine production in a dose-dependent manner. The F. nucleatum adhesin FadA acted as a proinflammatory virulence factor and increased the expression of interleukin(IL)-1β, IL-6 and IL-8. Further study showed that FadA could bind with PEBP1 to activate the Raf1-MAPK and IKK-NF-κB signaling pathways. Time-course RNA-sequencing analyses showed the cascade of gene activation process in PDLSCs with increasing durations of F. nucleatum infection. NFκB1 and NFκB2 upregulated after 3 h of F. nucleatum-infection, and the inflammatory-related genes in the NF-κB signaling pathway were serially elevated with time. Using computational drug repositioning analysis, we predicted and validated that two potential drugs (piperlongumine and fisetin) could attenuate the negative effects of F. nucleatum-infection. Collectively, this study unveils the potential pathogenic mechanisms of F. nucleatum and the host inflammatory response at the early stage of F. nucleatum infection.

Effect of advanced glycosylation end products on expression of connective tissue growth factor in cultured rat aortic smooth muscle cells / 中华老年医学杂志

Objective To explore the effect of advanced glycosylation end products (AGEs) on expression of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) in cultured rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and the mechanism of accelerated atherosclerosis in diabetes. Methods VSMCs were isolated and cultured from the thoracic aorta of rat. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western immunoblot analysis were used to detect the expression level of CTGF mRNA and protein. Results The expression of CTGF mRNA and protein were increased by AGE-BSA in the time- and dose-dependent manners(P<0.05). Conclusions AGEs may increase the expression activity of CTGF in cultured vascular smooth muscle cells.