Frontiers in Pharmacology (Oct 2022)

Platelet derived growth factor promotes the recovery of traumatic brain injury by inhibiting endoplasmic reticulum stress and autophagy-mediated pyroptosis

  • Fangfang Wu,
  • Renkan Zhang,
  • Weiyang Meng,
  • Lei Liu,
  • Yingdan Tang,
  • Leilei Lu,
  • Leilei Xia,
  • Hongyu Zhang,
  • Zhiguo Feng,
  • Zhiguo Feng,
  • Daqing Chen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.862324
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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Autophagy and endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress) are important in numerous pathological processes in traumatic brain injury (TBI). Growing evidence has indicated that pyroptosis-associated inflammasome is involved in the pathogenesis of TBI. Platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) has been reported to be as a potential therapeutic drug for neurological diseases. However, the roles of PDGF, autophagy and ER stress in pyroptosis have not been elucidated in the TBI. This study investigated the roles of ER stress and autophagy after TBI at different time points. We found that the ER stress and autophagy after TBI were inhibited, and the expressions of pyroptosis-related proteins induced by TBI, including NLRP3, Pro-Caspase1, Caspase1, GSDMD, GSDMD P30, and IL-18, were decreased upon PDGF treatment. Moreover, the rapamycin (RAPA, an autophagy activator) and tunicamycin (TM, an ER stress activator) eliminated the PDGF effect on the pyroptosis after TBI. Interestingly, the sodium 4-phenylbutyrate (4-PBA, an ER stress inhibitor) suppressed autophagy but 3-methyladenine (3-MA, an autophagy inhibitor) not for ER stress. The results revealed that PDGF improved the functional recovery after TBI, and the effects were markedly reversed by TM and RAPA. Taken together, this study provides a new insight that PDGF is a potential therapeutic strategy for enhancing the recovery of TBI.

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