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ORIGINAL RESEARCH

TMAO Promotes NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation of Microglia Aggravating Neurological Injury in Ischemic Stroke Through FTO/IGF2BP2

, , , , , , , & show all
Pages 3699-3714 | Received 29 Nov 2022, Accepted 19 Aug 2023, Published online: 28 Aug 2023
 

Abstract

Objective

Stroke is a kind of cerebrovascular disease with high mortality. TMAO has been shown to aggravate stroke outcomes, but its mechanism remains unclear.

Materials and Methods

Mice were fed with 0.12% TMAO for 16 weeks. Then, mice were made into MCAO/R models. Neurological score, infarct volume, neuronal damage and markers associated with inflammation were assessed. Since microglia played a crucial role in ischemic stroke, microglia of MCAO/R mice were isolated for high-throughput sequencing to identify the most differentially expressed gene following TMAO treatment. Afterward, the downstream pathways of TMAO were investigated using primary microglia.

Results

TMAO promoted the release of inflammatory cytokines in the brain of MCAO/R mice and promoted the activation of OGD/R microglial inflammasome, thereby exacerbating ischemic stroke outcomes. FTO/IGF2BP2 inhibited NLRP3 inflammasome activation in OGD/R microglia by downregulating the m6A level of NLRP3. TMAO can inhibit the expression of FTO and IGF2BP2, thus promoting the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome in OGD/R microglia. In conclusion, these results demonstrated that TMAO promotes NLRP3 inflammasome activation of microglia aggravating neurological injury in ischemic stroke through FTO/IGF2BP2.

Conclusion

Our results demonstrated that TMAO promotes NLRP3 inflammasome activation of microglia aggravating neurological injury in ischemic stroke through FTO/IGF2BP2. These findings explained the molecular mechanism of TMAO aggravating ischemic stroke in detail and provided molecular mechanism for clinical treatment.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (No. 2108085MH271) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (YD9110002028).