双乙酸钠对小鼠肠道菌群结构和功能的影响

肠道菌群在功能和代谢方面的研究日益成熟,但针对食品添加剂双乙酸钠对人体肠道菌群作用的研究目前仍鲜少有报道。为了探究其对肠道菌群及人体健康的潜在益处及危害,以小鼠为模型,以双乙酸钠为干预物质,干预剂量为0.3 g/(kg·d),干预1周后,收集实验小鼠和空白对照组小鼠的粪便并用菌群16S rDNA高通量测序进行肠道菌群的物种鉴定和丰度检测。对所得数据进行分析,得到小鼠肠道菌群的多样性与丰度比例等指标。结果显示,实验剂量下的双乙酸钠干预后,小鼠的肠道菌群无论是菌群种类还是丰度都有了显著改变,属水平新增447种,减少142种。根据丰度比例变化最显著的9种菌,如拟杆菌属(Bacteroides)、AKK(Akkermansia)等,并结合菌群代谢功能预测,脂肪酸合成显著上调,碳水化合物代谢、氨基酸代谢、脂代谢等明显下调,推测摄入高剂量的双乙酸钠可能有增加肥胖、过敏、慢性炎症和肠胃炎的风险。     

Tumor necrosis factor-α accelerates apoptosis of steatotic hepatocytes from a murine model of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) develops in a subset of patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but the exact mechanisms involved in the progression of NAFLD to NASH remain poorly understood. We investigated the role of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in the apoptosis of hepatocytes that is related to the severity of NASH. We separated primary hepatocytes from the NAFLD liver caused by a high-fat diet. The production of intracellular reactive oxygen species was increased in steatotic hepatocytes, which were also sensitive to TNF-α. This factor induced significant apoptosis through the signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway. We describe here a novel culture model of steatotic hepatocytes separated from the NAFLD liver, and demonstrate that TNF-α induces their apoptosis in vitro.     

Chronic cholesterol depletion increases F-actin levels and induces cytoskeletal reorganization via a dual mechanism

Previous work from us and others has suggested that cholesterol is an important lipid in the context of the organization of the actin cytoskeleton. However, reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton upon modulation of membrane cholesterol is rarely addressed in the literature. In this work, we explored the signaling crosstalk between cholesterol and the actin cytoskeleton by using a high-resolution confocal microscopic approach to quantitatively measure changes in F-actin content upon cholesterol depletion. Our results show that F-actin content significantly increases upon chronic cholesterol depletion, but not during acute cholesterol depletion. In addition, utilizing inhibitors targeting the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway at different steps, we show that reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton could occur due to the synergistic effect of multiple pathways, including prenylated Rho GTPases and availability of membrane phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate. These results constitute one of the first comprehensive dissections of the mechanistic basis underlying the interplay between cellular actin levels and cholesterol biosynthesis. We envision these results will be relevant for future understating of the remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton in pathological conditions with altered cholesterol.     

ROS-Ca is associated with mitochondria permeability transition pore involved in surfactin-induced MCF-7 cells apoptosis

The surfactin can inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis in cancer cells. Moreover, surfactin can induce cell death in human breast cancer MCF-7 cells through mitochondrial pathway. However, the molecular mechanism involved in this pathway remains to be elucidated. Here, the reactive oxygen species (ROS) and Ca²⁺ on mitochondria permeability transition pore (MPTP) activity, and MCF-7 cell apoptosis which induced by surfactin were investigated. It is found that surfactin evoked mitochondrial ROS generation, and the surfactin-induced cell death was prevented by N-acetylcysteine (NAC, an inhibitor of ROS). An increasing cytoplasmic Ca²⁺ concentration was detected in surfactin-induced MCF-7 apoptosis, which was inhibited by 1,2-bis (2-aminophenoxy) ethane-N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid (BAPTA-AM, a chelator of calcium). In addition, the relationship between ROS generation and the increase of cytoplasm Ca²⁺ was determined. The results showed that surfactin initially induced the ROS formation, leading to the MPTP opening accompanied with the collapse of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨ_m). Then the cytoplasmic Ca²⁺ concentration increased in virtue of the changes of mitochondrial permeability, which was prevented by BAPTA-AM. Besides, cytochrome c (cyt c) was released from mitochondria to cytoplasm through the MPTP and activated caspase-9, eventually induced apoptosis. In summary, surfactin has notable anti-tumor effect on MCF-7 cells, however, there was no obvious cytotoxicity on normal cells.     

Alleviation of chromium toxicity in rice seedlings by applying exogenous glutathione

The effect of exogenous reduced glutathione (GSH) on alleviation of hexavalent chromium (Cr⁶⁺) toxicity to rice seedlings and its physiological mechanisms were comprehensively investigated in a series of experiments. Our results showed that growth and nutrient uptake of rice seedlings were dramatically reduced under 100 μM Cr⁶⁺ stress, and the reduction was significantly alleviated by exogenous GSH. Cr⁶⁺ stress also reduced cell viability in root tips and damaged ultrastructure of both chloroplasts and root cells, while the addition of GSH alleviates those negative effects. Cr-induced toxicity and GSH-caused Cr alleviation differed significantly between Cr-tolerant Line 117 (L117) and Cr-sensitive Line 41 (L41). Under Cr⁶⁺ stress, cystine content was increased and GSH content was decreased in rice plants, exogenous GSH, however, mitigated the Cr-toxicity by reversing the Cr-induced changes of the two compounds. The types of Cr-induced secretion of organic acids varied between the genotypes, where reduction in the contents of acetic and lactic acids and tartaric and malic acids were observed in L117 and L41, respectively. The addition of GSH alleviated the reduction of secretion of these organic acids. Exogenous GSH also altered the forms of Cr ions in the rhizosphere and the fraction of distribution at subcellular level in both shoots and roots. It may be concluded that the alleviation of Cr⁶⁺ toxicity by exogenous GSH is directly attributed to its regulation on forms of Cr ions in rhizosphere and their distribution at subcellular levels.     

Leishmania donovani: dyskinetoplastid cells survive and proliferate in the presence of pyruvate and uridine but do not undergo apoptosis after treatment with camptothecin

We have shown that treatment with luteolin in leishmanial cells causes loss of mt-DNA and induces apoptosis through mitochondria dependent pathway [Sen, N., Das, B.B., Ganguly, A., Banerjee, B., Sen, T., Majumder, H.K., 2006. Leishmania donovani: intracellular ATP level regulates apoptosis-like death in luteolin induced dyskinetoplastid cells. Experimental Parasitology, in press]. Here, we report that mitochondrial DNA depleted leishmanial cells require exogenous sources of pyruvate and uridine to survive and proliferate. The presence of pyruvate and uridine in a growing media help them to produce sufficient amount of glycolytic ATP to maintain the mitochondrial membrane potential in the absence of their functional ETC. Treatment of wild type cells with CPT causes generation of ROS that leads to apoptosis. But unlike the normal cells ROS was not generated in these mt-DNA depleted cells after treatment with CPT. Taken together we have shown for the first time that dyskinetoplastid cells are auxotrophic for pyruvate and uridine and apoptosis cannot be induced in these cells in the presence of CPT. Therefore, the presence of mitochondrial DNA is absolutely necessary for the cytotoxicity of CPT in kinetoplastid parasites.     

Pro-MMP-2 activation by the PPARgamma agonist, ciglitazone, induces cell invasion through the generation of ROS and the activation of ERK

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) is a nuclear receptor modulating a variety of biological functions including cancer cell proliferation and differentiation. However, the role of PPARgamma and its ligands in tumor invasion is unclear. To evaluate a possible role for PPARgamma ligands in tumor invasion, we examined whether PPARgamma agonists including pioglitazone, troglitazone, rosiglitazone, and ciglitazone could affect the activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in the HT1080 cell line, a well-studied and well-characterized cell line for MMP research. The gelatin zymography assay showed that ciglitazone activated pro-MMP-2 significantly. In addition, ciglitazone increased the expression of MMP-2, which was accompanied by an increase of membrane type 1-MMP (MT1-MMP) expression. The PPARgamma antagonist, GW9662 attenuated the ciglitazone-induced PPARgamma activation but it did not affect the pro-MMP2 activation by ciglitazone, suggesting that the action of ciglitazone on the pro-MMP-2 activation bypassed the PPARgamma pathway. Antioxidants and various inhibitors of signal transduction were used to investigate the mechanism of ciglitazone-induced pro-MMP-2 activation. We found that the sustained production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was required for pro-MMP-2 activation by ciglitazone. We also found that PB98059, an inhibitor of MEK-ERK, significantly blocked ciglitazone-induced pro-MMP-2 activation and that extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) was hyperphosphorylated by ciglitazone. Moreover, cell invasion was significantly increased by ciglitazone in the HT1080 cell lines, whereas cell motility was not affected. This study suggests that ciglitazone-induced pro-MMP-2 activation increases PPARgamma-independent tumor cell invasion through ROS production and ERK activation in some types of cancer cells.