2. Academic Validation
  3. Nuclear receptor coactivator 4-mediated ferritinophagy contributes to cerebral ischemia-induced ferroptosis in ischemic stroke

Nuclear receptor coactivator 4-mediated ferritinophagy contributes to cerebral ischemia-induced ferroptosis in ischemic stroke

  • Pharmacol Res. 2021 Dec:174:105933. doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2021.105933.
Chong Li 1,  Guangchi Sun 1,  Binglin Chen 1,  Lei Xu 1,  Yangfan Ye 1,  Jinyan He 2,  Zhongyuan Bao 1,  Pengzhan Zhao 3,  Zong Miao 1,  Lin Zhao 1,  Jingming Hu 1,  Yongping You 1,  Ning Liu 1,  Honglu Chao 4,  Jing Ji 5
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
  • 2 School of Medical Imaging, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
  • 3 Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China.
  • 4 Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 5 Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
PMID: 34634471 DOI: 10.1016/j.phrs.2021.105933
Abstract

Ischemic stroke poses a significant health risk due to its high rate of disability and mortality. To address this problem, several therapeutic approaches have been proposed, including interruption targeting programmed cell death (PCD). Ferroptosis is a newly defined PCD characterized by iron-dependent accumulation of lipid peroxidation, and is becoming a promising target for treating numerous diseases. To explore the underlying mechanisms of the initiation and execution of Ferroptosis in ischemic stroke, we established stroke models in vivo and in vitro simulating ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) neuronal injury. Different from previous reports on stroke, we tested Ferroptosis by measuring the levels of core proteins, such as ACSL4, 15-LOX2, Ferritin and GPX4. In addition, I/R injury induces excessive degradation of ferritin via the Autophagy pathway and subsequent increase of free iron in neurons. This phenomenon has recently been termed ferritinophagy and reported to be regulated by nuclear receptor coactivator 4 (NCOA4) in some cell lines. Increased NCOA4 in cytoplasm was detected in our study and then silenced by shRNA to investigate its function. Both in vivo and in vitro, NCOA4 deletion notably abrogated ferritinophagy caused by I/R injury and thus inhibited Ferroptosis. Furthermore, we found that NCOA4 was upregulated by ubiquitin specific peptidase 14 (USP14) via a deubiquitination process in damaged neurons, and we found evidence of pharmacological inhibition of USP14 effectively reducing NCOA4 levels to protect neurons from ferritinophagy-mediated Ferroptosis. These findings suggest a novel and effective target for treating ischemic stroke.

Keywords

2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (Pubmed CID: 9283); 3-methyladenine (Pubmed CID: 135398661); Calcein-AM (Pubmed CID: 390986); Dimethyl Sulfoxide (Pubmed CID: 679); E-64d (Pubmed CID: 65663); Ferritinophagy; Ferroptosis; Glutathione (Pubmed CID: 124886); Ischemic stroke; Liproxstatin-1 (Pubmed CID: 135735917); Malondialdehyde (Pubmed CID: 10964); NCOA4; Neuroprotection; PepstatinA (Pubmed CID: 5478883); Rapamycin (Pubmed CID: 5284616); USP14.

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