Aging-Related Endothelial Progenitor Cell Dysfunction and Its Association with IL-17 and IL-23 in HFmrEF Patients

Exercise Training After Myocardial Infarction Enhances Endothelial Progenitor Cells Function via NRG-1 Signaling

Vascular regeneration after myocardial infarction (MI) is essential to improve myocardial ischemia, delay post-infarction ventricular remodeling, and improve the long-term prognosis of MI. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) play important roles in the functional repair and homeostatic maintenance of the vascular endothelium. Exercise training stimulates EPC mobilization and increases the number of circulating EPCs, which has beneficial effects on the restoration of vascular integrity and hemodynamic reconstitution. After post-MI exercise training, cardiac function, the myocardial infarct area, and capillary density in the peri-infarct zone were measured. Bone marrow-derived EPCs were isolated from mice to measure the proliferation, migration, and in vitro angiogenesis of EPCs after myocardial infarction exercise. The expression of NRG-1/ErbB4 signaling factor and related proteins in downstream PI3K/AKT signaling pathway were detected, and the level of autocrine NRG-1 in EPCs was detected. Post-MI resistance training, aerobic exercise training, and combined exercise training increased EPC mobilization and proliferation, migration, and tube-forming capacity, promoted myocardial vascular regeneration, improved cardiac function, and reduced infarct size. Exercise training upregulated NRG-1 expression in EPCs, and NRG-1/ErbB4 signaling activated the downstream PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. Moreover, EPCs may have a positive feedback autocrine loop with NRG-1 to improve the function of EPCs and promote vascular repair and regeneration in mice with MI. Exercise training after MI promotes the function of bone marrow-derived EPCs through NRG-1/ErbB4/PI3K/AKT signaling, thus exerting a role in angiogenesis.

Unveiling the mechanism of high sugar diet induced advanced glycosylation end products damage skin structure via extracellular matrix-receptor interaction pathway

BACKGROUND

AGEs accumulate in the skin as a result of a high-sugar diet and play an important role in the skin aging process.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to characterize the mechanism underlying the effect of a high-sugar diet on skin aging damage at a holistic level.

METHODS

We established a high-sugar diet mouse model to compare and analyze differences in physiological indexes. The effect of a high-sugar diet on skin aging damage was analyzed by means of a transcriptome study and staining of pathological sections. Furthermore, the differences in the protein expression of AGEs and ECM components between the HSD and control groups were further verified by immunohistochemistry.

RESULTS

The skin in the HSD group mice tended toward a red, yellow, dark, and deep color. In addition, the epidermis was irregular with anomalous phenomena, the epidermis was thinned, and the dermis lost its normal structure and showed vacuolated changes. Transcriptomics results revealed significant downregulation of the ECM-receptor interaction pathway, significant upregulation of the expression of AGEs and significant downregulation of the expression levels of COLI, FN1, LM5, and TNC, among others ECM proteins and ECM receptors.

CONCLUSIONS

High-sugar diets cause skin aging damage by inducing the accumulation of AGEs, disrupting the expression of ECM proteins and their receptors, and downregulating the ECM-receptor interaction pathway, which affects cellular behavioral functions such as cell proliferation, migration, and adhesion, as well as normal skin tissue structure.

Role of serum cytokines in the prediction of heart failure in patients with coronary artery disease

AIMS

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common cause of heart failure (HF). This study aimed to identify cytokine biomarkers for predicting HF in patients with CAD.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Twelve patients with CAD without HF (CAD-non HF), 12 patients with CAD complicated with HF (CAD-HF), and 12 healthy controls were enrolled for Human Cytokine Antibody Array, which were used as the training dataset. Then, differentially expressed cytokines among the different groups were identified, and crucial characteristic proteins related to CAD-HF were screened using a combination of the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, recursive feature elimination, and random forest methods. A support vector machine (SVM) diagnostic model was constructed based on crucial characteristic proteins, followed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Finally, two validation datasets, GSE20681 and GSE59867, were downloaded to verify the diagnostic performance of the SVM model and expression of crucial proteins, as well as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was also used to verify the levels of crucial proteins in blood samples. In total, 12 differentially expressed proteins were overlapped in the three comparison groups, and then four optimal characteristic proteins were identified, including VEGFR2, FLRG, IL-23, and FGF-21. After that, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the constructed SVM classification model for the training dataset was 0.944. The accuracy of the SVM classification model was validated using the GSE20681 and GSE59867 datasets, with area under the receiver operating characteristic curve values of 0.773 and 0.745, respectively. The expression trends of the four crucial proteins in the training dataset were consistent with those in the validation dataset and those determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

CONCLUSIONS

The combination of VEGFR2, FLRG, IL-23, and FGF-21 can be used as a candidate biomarker for the prediction and prevention of HF in patients with CAD.

Role of Endothelial Progenitor Cells in Frailty

Frailty is a clinical condition closely related to aging which is characterized by a multidimensional decline in biological reserves, a failure of physiological mechanisms and vulnerability to minor stressors. Chronic inflammation, the impairment of endothelial function, age-related endocrine system modifications and immunosenescence are important mechanisms in the pathophysiology of frailty. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are considered important contributors of the endothelium homeostasis and turn-over. In the elderly, EPCs are impaired in terms of function, number and survival. In addition, the modification of EPCs' level and function has been widely demonstrated in atherosclerosis, hypertension and diabetes mellitus, which are the most common age-related diseases. The purpose of this review is to illustrate the role of EPCs in frailty. Initially, we describe the endothelial dysfunction in frailty, the response of EPCs to the endothelial dysfunction associated with frailty and, finally, interventions which may restore the EPCs expression and function in frail people.