Activation of the monocytic α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor modulates oxidative stress and inflammation-associated development of coronary artery spasm via a p38 MAP-kinase signaling-dependent pathway

Ming Yow Hung, Yi Hong Wu, Oluwaseun Adebayo Bamodu, Xi Chen, Yen Kuang Lin, Patrick Hu, Nen Chung Chang, Jong Hwei Su Pang*, Chi Tai Yeh

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objective: Smoking and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) are risk factors for coronary artery spasm (CAS), which is characterized by the increased interleukin-6 (IL-6) level and monocyte counts; however, limited data are available regarding the role of cigarette-embedded nicotine in the modulation of monocytic inflammatory activity in CAS. Approach: We investigated and elucidated the putative roles and associations of nicotine, monocytic IL-6, α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7-nAChR), and CRP in CAS development. Results: We demonstrated that a significantly increased α7-nAChR (p = 0.001) and IL-6 (p = 0.0036) messenger RNA (mRNA) expression in the serum of patients with CAS. Serum hs-CRP levels exhibited a strong positive correlation with the monocytic mRNA expression of α7-nAChR (r = 0.71, p < 0.001) and IL-6 (r = 0.49, p = 0.006). The α7-nAChR and IL-6 expression levels of the CAS group were also positively correlated (r = 0.63, p < 0.001). Compared with the untreated controls, THP-1 cells and patient-derived monocytes treated with different concentrations of CRP displayed significantly increased expression levels of α7-nAChR mRNA and protein (p = 0.0054), in a dose-dependent manner. We also demonstrated that compared with the IL-6 expression elicited by CRP alone (p = 0.0489), the CRP-induced rise in monocytic IL-6 mRNA and protein expression in the presence of nicotine (p = 0.0002), is mediated by α7-nAChR activation and the deregulation of the human p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) signaling pathway. Conclusions: Our data demonstrate that the elevated monocytic IL-6 and α7-nAChR mRNA and protein expression levels are associated with the interaction between nicotine and CRP positively modulates CAS development. Our study suggests the potential role of α7-nAChR mRNA and/or protein expression as a diagnostic biomarker for CAS.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)266-276
Number of pages11
JournalFree Radical Biology and Medicine
Volume120
DOIs
StatePublished - 20 05 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Inc.

Keywords

  • Acute coronary syndrome
  • Coronary artery spasm
  • Inflammation
  • Monocyte-derived macrophages
  • Monocytes
  • Nicotine acetylcholine receptor
  • p38-MAPK
  • α7-nAChR

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