Interleukin-22 receptor 1 is expressed in multinucleated giant cells: A study on intestinal tuberculosis and Crohn's disease

Network pharmacology based research of mechanism of Fuzi Lizhong pills for treatment of intestinal tuberculosis

BACKGROUND

Conventional tuberculosis chemotherapy regimens used in clinical practice have significant side effects when treating intestinal tuberculosis (ITB). Fuzi Lizhong pills are a traditional Chinese medicine commonly used to treat ITB. Studying its exact mechanism of action can help further the research on the treatment of ITB.

AIM

To study the mechanism of Fuzi Lizhong pills for treatment of ITB based on network pharmacology.

METHODS

The active components of five main medicinal materials of Fuzi Lizhong pills were screened from the TCMSP database, and the effective component-related targets were collected from the TCMSP and Drugbank databases. The targets related to ITB were collected from the Genecards database. Through the Venny2.1.0 online website, the overlapping targets of drug active components and disease targets were selected as potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of ITB. Cytoscape3.9.1 software was used to construct a network of "drug-active ingredients-targets-disease". The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of drug potential therapeutic targets was constructed in the online database String. Then, the topology and visualization were analyzed with Cytoscape3.9.1 software, and the core targets were further selected. The potential therapeutic targets were analyzed by Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analyses using the "clusterProfiler" package in R 4.1.2.

RESULTS

A total of 108 active drug components of Fuzi Lizhong pills, 254 drug action targets, and 2579 disease targets were screened from the public database. A total of 134 potential therapeutic targets and 10 core targets (AKT1, IL-6, TP53, VEGFA, IL1B, JUN, CASP3, PTGS2, PPARG, and MAPK3) were selected. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses suggested that the biological mechanism of Fuzi Lizhong pills for the treatment of ITB may be related to cellular oxidative stress, immune regulation involving cytokines, and functional pathways including the IL-17 signal pathway, oxidative stress pathway, and so on.

CONCLUSION

The mechanism of Fuzi Lizhong pills for treatment of ITB is related to oxidative stress and immune regulation of cytokines.

Research progress on genetic control of host susceptibility to tuberculosis

The "Lübeck disaster", twins studies, adoptees studies, and other epidemiological observational studies have shown that host genetic factors play a significant role in determining the host susceptibility to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and pathogenesis of tuberculosis. From linkage analyses to genome-wide association studies, it has been discovered that human leucocyte antigen (HLA) genes as well as non-HLA genes (such as SLC11A1, VDR, ASAP1 as well as genes encoding cytokines and pattern recognition receptors) are associated with tuberculosis susceptibility. To provide ideas for subsequent studies about risk prediction of MTB infection and the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, we review the research progress on tuberculosis susceptibility related genes in recent years, focusing on the correlation of HLA genes and non-HLA genes with the pathogenesis of tuberculosis. We also report the results of an enrichment analysis of the genes mentioned in the article. Most of these genes appear to be involved in the regulation of immune system and inflammation， and are also closely related to autoimmune diseases.

Exploring the association between Th17 pathway gene polymorphisms and pulmonary tuberculosis

Th17 cells play a key role in immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), and this study aimed to explore the association of Th17 pathway gene polymorphisms with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) susceptibility in a Chinese population. A total of 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms in Th17 pathway genes (IL-17A gene rs2275913, rs3748067, rs8193036, rs3819024, IL-17F gene rs7741835, rs763780, IL-21 gene rs907715, rs2055979, IL-23R gene rs11805303, and rs7518660) were genotyped in 456 PTB patients and 466 controls using SNPscan technique. The IL-23R rs11805303 CC genotype, C allele frequencies were significantly lower in PTB patients than in controls, and the rs11805303 variant was significantly associated with the reduced risk of PTB in a recessive model. There were no significant associations between IL-17A, IL-17F, and IL-21 gene variations and PTB risk. In IL-17A gene, rs2275913, rs3748067, and rs3819024 variants were associated with drug resistance in PTB patients. In IL-17F gene, rs7741835 variant affected drug resistance, and rs763780 variant was associated with hypoproteinemia in PTB patients. In addition, the lower frequencies of the TT genotype, T allele of rs2055979 were found in PTB patients with drug-induced liver injury. Haplotype analysis showed that IL-23R CG haplotype frequency was significantly lower in PTB patients than in controls, while the TG haplotype frequency was higher. In conclusion, IL-23R rs11805303 polymorphism may contribute to the genetic underpinnings of PTB in the Chinese population, and the IL-17A, IL-17F, and IL-21 genetic variations are associated with several clinical manifestations of PTB patients.

A Novel Clinical Radiomics Nomogram to Identify Crohn's Disease from Intestinal Tuberculosis

Purpose

To establish a clinical radiomics nomogram to differentiate Crohn’s disease (CD) from intestinal tuberculosis (ITB).

Patients and Methods

Ninety-three patients with CD and 67 patients with ITB were recruited (111 in training cohort and 49 in test cohort). The region of interest (ROI) for the lesions in the ileocecal region was delineated on computed tomography enterography and radiomics features extracted. Radiomics features were filtered by the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT), and a radiomics score was calculated by using the radiomics signature-based formula. We constructed a clinical radiomics model and nomogram combining clinical factors and radiomics score through multivariate logistic regression analysis, and the internal validation was undertaken by ten-fold cross validation. Analyses of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and decision curve analysis (DCA) were used to evaluate the prediction performance. DeLong test was applied to evaluate the performance of the clinical, radiomics and combined model.

Results

The clinical radiomics nomogram, which was based on the 9 radiomics signature and two clinical factors, indicated that the clinical radiomics model had an area under the ROC curve (AUC) value of 0.96 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.93–0.99) in the training cohort and 0.93 (95% CI: 0.86–1.00) in validation cohort. The clinical radiomics model was superior to the clinical model and radiomics model, and the difference was significant (P = 0.006, 0.004) in the training cohort. DCA confirmed the clinical utility of clinical radiomics nomogram.

Conclusion

CTE-based radiomics model has a good performance in distinguishing CD from ITB. A nomogram constructed by combining radiomics and clinical factors can help clinicians accurately diagnose and select appropriate treatment strategies between CD and ITB.

Interleukin-22 deficiency alleviates doxorubicin-induced oxidative stress and cardiac injury via the p38 MAPK/macrophage/Fizz3 axis in mice

Several interleukin (IL) family members have been demonstrated to be involved in doxorubicin (DOX)-induced cardiac injury. This study aimed to investigate the role of IL-22 in DOX-induced cardiac injury and explore its possible mechanisms. In this study, mice were given DOX, and the cardiac expression and sources of IL-22 were determined. Then, IL-22 was knocked out to observe the effects on DOX-induced cardiac injury in mice. In addition, the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway was inhibited, macrophages were depleted and adoptively transferred, and Fizz3 was up-regulated in mice to explore the mechanisms. The results showed that cardiac IL-22 expression was significantly increased by DOX treatment and was mostly derived from cardiac macrophages. IL-22 knockout significantly reduced cardiac vacuolization and the expression of cardiomyocyte injury markers in both serum and left ventricular tissue and improved cardiac function in DOX-treated mice. In addition, IL-22 knockout reversed DOX-induced cardiac M1 macrophage/M2 macrophage imbalance, reduced oxidative stress and protected against cardiomyocyte apoptosis. p38 MAPK pathway inhibition with SB203580 and macrophage depletion further alleviated the above effects in DOX-treated IL-22-knockout mice. The effects were stronger IL-22-knockout mice with adoptive transfer of WT macrophages than in those with adoptive transfer of IL-22-knockout macrophages. Furthermore, increasing the expression of Fizz3 reduced cardiomyocyte apoptosis and alleviated cardiac dysfunction. Our results may suggest that IL-22 knockout alleviate DOX-induced oxidative stress and cardiac injury by inhibiting macrophage differentiation and thereby increasing the expression of Fizz3. Reductions in IL-22 expression may be beneficial for clinical chemotherapy in tumor patients.