Electroacupuncture alleviates ulcerative colitis by targeting CXCL1: evidence from the transcriptome and validation

Frontiers in Immunology

Immunology

Hong-Ying Li¹  Yuan Shen¹  Qiao-Feng Wu¹  Shu-Guang Yu¹  Long-Cong Dong¹  Qin Huang¹  Rui-Bin Zhang¹ 

[1] Acupuncture and Tuina College, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China;

关键词: ulcerative colitis;    electroacupuncture;    transcriptome;    CXC motif chemokine ligand 1;    immune infiltrating cells;    Th1 cytokine interferon-γ;    macrophages;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fimmu.2023.1187574

 received in 2023-03-24, accepted in 2023-08-09,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWe aimed to use transcriptomics, bioinformatics analysis, and core gene validation to identify the core gene and potential mechanisms for electroacupuncture (EA) treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC).Materials and methodsEA was performed in mice after induction of UC via dextran sodium sulfate. Body weight, disease activity index (DAI), colon length, and hematoxylin-eosin of the colon tissue were used to evaluate the effects of EA. Mice transcriptome samples were analyzed to identify the core genes, and further verified with human transcriptome database; the ImmuCellAI database was used to analyze the relationship between the core gene and immune infiltrating cells (IICs); and immunofluorescence was used to verify the results.ResultsEA could reduce DAI and histological colitis scores, increase bodyweight and colon length, and improve the expression of local and systemic proinflammatory factors in the serum and colon of UC mice. Eighteen co-differentially expressed genes were identified by joint bioinformatics analyses of mouse and human transcriptional data; Cxcl1 was the core gene. EA affected IICs by inhibiting Cxcl1 expression and regulated the polarization of macrophages by affecting the Th1 cytokine IFN-γ, inhibiting the expression of CXCL1.ConclusionsCXCL1 is the target of EA, which is associated with the underlying immune mechanism related to Th1 cytokine IFN-γ.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Dong, Shen, Li, Huang, Yu and Wu