Elevation of inflammatory S100A8/S100A9 complexes in intracranial aneurysms

Current understanding of macrophages in intracranial aneurysm: relevant etiological manifestations, signaling modulation and therapeutic strategies

Macrophages activation and inflammatory response play crucial roles in intracranial aneurysm (IA) formation and progression. The outcome of ruptured IA is considerably poor, and the mechanisms that trigger IA progression and rupture remain to be clarified, thereby developing effective therapy to prevent subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) become difficult. Recently, climbing evidences have been expanding our understanding of the macrophages relevant IA pathogenesis, such as immune cells population, inflammatory activation, intra-/inter-cellular signaling transductions and drug administration responses. Crosstalk between macrophages disorder, inflammation and cellular signaling transduction aggravates the devastating consequences of IA. Illustrating the pros and cons mechanisms of macrophages in IA progression are expected to achieve more efficient treatment interventions. In this review, we summarized the current advanced knowledge of macrophages activation, infiltration, polarization and inflammatory responses in IA occurrence and development, as well as the most relevant NF-κB, signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) and Toll-Like Receptor 4 (TLR4) regulatory signaling modulation. The understanding of macrophages regulatory mechanisms is important for IA patients' clinical outcomes. Gaining insight into the macrophages regulation potentially contributes to more precise IA interventions and will also greatly facilitate the development of novel medical therapy.

A novel clinical-radscore nomogram for predicting ruptured intracranial aneurysm

Objectives

Our study aims to find the more practical and powerful method to predict intracranial aneurysm (IA) rupture through verification of predictive power of different models.

Methods

Clinical and imaging data of 576 patients with IAs including 192 ruptured IAs and matched 384 unruptured IAs was retrospectively analyzed. Radiomics features derived from computed tomography angiography (CTA) images were selected by t-test and Elastic-Net regression. A radiomics score (radscore) was developed based on the optimal radiomics features. Inflammatory markers were selected by multivariate regression. And then 4 models including the radscore, inflammatory, clinical and clinical-radscore models (C-R model) were built. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was performed to evaluate the performance of each model, PHASES and ELAPSS. The nomogram visualizing the C-R model was constructed to predict the risk of IA rupture.

Results

Five inflammatory features, 2 radiological characteristics and 7 radiomics features were significantly associated with IA rupture. The areas under ROCs of the radscore, inflammatory, clinical and C-R models were 0.814, 0.935, 0.970 and 0.975 in the training cohort and 0.805, 0.927, 0.952 and 0.962 in the validation cohort, respectively.

Conclusion

The inflammatory model performs particularly well in predicting the risk of IA rupture, and its predictive power is further improved by combining with radiological and radiomics features and the C-R model performs the best. The C-R nomogram is a more stable and effective tool than PHASES and ELAPSS for individually predicting the risk of rupture for patients with IA.

S100 proteins in cardiovascular diseases

Cardiovascular diseases have become a serious threat to human health and life worldwide and have the highest fatality rate. Therefore, the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases have become a focus for public health experts. The expression of S100 proteins is cell- and tissue-specific; they are implicated in cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and inflammatory diseases and cancer. This review article discusses the progress in the research on the role of S100 protein family members in cardiovascular diseases. Understanding the mechanisms by which these proteins exert their biological function may provide novel concepts for preventing, treating, and predicting cardiovascular diseases.

A Future Blood Test to Detect Cerebral Aneurysms

Intracranial aneurysms are reported to affect 2-5% of the population. Despite advances in the surgical management of this disease, diagnostic technologies have marginally improved and still rely on expensive or invasive imaging procedures. Currently, there is no blood-based test to detect cerebral aneurysm formation or quantify the risk of rupture. The aim of this review is to summarize current literature on the mechanism of aneurysm formation, specifically studies relating to inflammation, and provide a rationale and commentary on a hypothetical future blood-based test. Efforts should be focused on clinical-translational approaches to create an assay to screen for cerebral aneurysm presence and risk-stratify patients to allow for superior treatment timing and management. Cerebral Aneurysm Blood Test Considerations: There are multiple caveats to development of a putative blood test to detect cerebral aneurysm presence.

Integrating bulk and single-cell sequencing reveals the phenotype-associated cell subpopulations in sepsis-induced acute lung injury

The dysfunctional immune response and multiple organ injury in sepsis is a recurrent theme impacting prognosis and mortality, while the lung is the first organ invaded by sepsis. To systematically elucidate the transcriptomic changes in the main constituent cells of sepsis-injured lung tissue, we applied single-cell RNA sequencing to the lung tissue samples from septic and control mice and created a comprehensive cellular landscape with 25044 cells, including 11317 immune and 13727 non-immune cells. Sepsis alters the composition of all cellular compartments, particularly neutrophils, monocytes, T cells, endothelial, and fibroblasts populations. Our study firstly provides a single-cell view of cellular changes in septic lung injury. Furthermore, by integrating bulk sequencing data and single-cell data with the Scissors-method, we identified the cell subpopulations that are most associated with septic lung injury phenotype. The phenotypic-related cell subpopulations identified by Scissors-method were consistent with the cell subpopulations with significant composition changes. The function analysis of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and the cell-cell interaction analysis further reveal the important role of these phenotype-related subpopulations in septic lung injury. Our research provides a rich resource for understanding cellular changes and provides insights into the contributions of specific cell types to the biological processes that take place during sepsis-induced lung injury.

Characterization and Proteomic Analyses of Proinflammatory Cytokines in a Mouse Model of Liver Transplant Rejection

Liver transplantation (LT) is an effective strategy for the treatment of end-stage liver disease, but immune rejection remains a significant detriment to the survival and prognosis of these LT patients. While immune rejection is closely related to cytokines, the cytokines investigated within previous studies have been limited and have not included a systematic analysis of proinflammatory cytokines. In the present study, we used a protein chip system and proteomics to detect and analyze serum proinflammatory cytokines and differentially expressed proteins in liver tissue in a mouse model of liver transplantation. In addition, bioinformatics analysis was employed to analyze the proinflammatory cytokines and differential changes in proteins in response to this procedure. With these analyses, we found that serum contents of GC-CSF, CXCL-1, MCP-5, and CXCL-2 were significantly increased after liver transplantation, while IL-5, IL-10, and IL-17 were significantly decreased. Results from Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG pathway analyses revealed that the cytokine-cytokine receptor, Th1/Th2 cell differentiation, and JAK-STAT signaling pathway were enriched in a network associated with the activation of immune response. Results from our proteomic analysis of liver tissue samples revealed that 470 proteins are increased and 50 decreased, including Anxa1, Anxa2, Acsl4, Sirpa, S100a8, and S100a9. KEGG pathway analysis indicated that the neutrophil extracellular trap formation, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway, and leukocyte transendothelial migration were all associated with liver transplant rejection in these mice. Bioinformatics analysis results demonstrated that CXCL-1/CXCL-2 and S100a8/S100a9 were the genes most closely related to the functions of neutrophils and the mononuclear phagocyte system. These findings provide new insights into some of the critical factors associated with liver transplant rejection and thus offer new targets for the treatment and prevention of this condition.