Abstract
Ginsenoside Rg1 (Rg1), a saponin extracted from Panax ginseng, has been well documented to be effective against ischemic/reperfusion (I/R) neuronal injury. However, the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. In the present study, we investigated the roles of Nrf2 and miR-144 in the protective effects of Rg1 against I/R-induced neuronal injury. In OGD/R-treated PC12 cells, Rg1 (0.01–1 μmol/L) dose-dependently attenuated the cell injury accompanied by prolonging nuclear accumulation of Nrf2, enhancing the transcriptional activity of Nrf2, as well as promoting the expression of ARE-target genes. The activation of the Nrf2/ARE pathway by Rg1 was independent of disassociation with Keap1, but resulted from post-translational regulations. Knockdown of Nrf2 abolished all the protective changes of Rg1 in OGD/R-treated PC12 cells. Furthermore, Rg1 treatment significantly decreased the expression of miR-144, which downregulated Nrf2 production by targeting its 3’-untranlated region after OGD/R. Knockdown of Nrf2 had no effect on the expression of miR-144, suggesting that miR-144 was an upstream regulator of Nrf2. We revealed that there was a direct binding between Nrf2 and miR-144 in PC12 cells. Application of anti-miR-144 occluded the activation of the Nrf2/ARE pathway by Rg1 in OGD/R-treated PC12 cells. In tMCAO rats, administration of Rg1 (20 mg/kg) significantly alleviated ischemic injury, and activated Nrf2/ARE pathway. The protective effects of Rg1 were abolished by injecting of AAV-HIF-miR-144-shRNA into the predicted ischemic penumbra. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that Rg1 alleviates oxidative stress after I/R through inhibiting miR-144 activity and subsequently promoting the Nrf2/ARE pathway at the post-translational level.
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Introduction
Panax Ginseng has been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine as a tonic to improve stamina and vitality [1, 2]. Ginsenoside Rg1 (Rg1), a purified saponin isolated from ginseng, is considered one of the most potent antistroke candidates by many recent studies [3,4,5]. A systematic review and meta-analysis revealed a marked efficacy of Rg1 in experimental acute ischemic stroke, as manifested by its ability to reduce infarct volume and improve neurological score [14].
To determine whether the increased nuclear accumulation caused by Rg1 is regulated by Keap1, its expression was determined at 24 h of OGD/R. As shown in Fig. 2c, d, the expression of Keap1 in both the nucleus and the cytoplasm was significantly decreased after OGD/R, but Rg1 treatment showed no effect on Keap1 expression compared with the vehicle group. This suggests that Keap1 does not play a role in the Rg1-mediated enhancement of the nuclear accumulation of Nrf2.
Rg1 increases Nrf2-targeted gene expression
To determine whether ARE activity is increased by Rg1, ARE-dependent luciferase activity was evaluated. As shown in Fig. 3a, Rg1 treatment increased ARE-luciferase activity in a concentration-dependent manner (P < 0.01, P < 0.001 vs vehicle group). We next tested the ability of Rg1 to promote the Nrf2 pathway under OGD/R. As shown in Fig. 3b, quantitative PCR analysis showed that mRNA levels of NQO-1 (P < 0.01, P < 0.001 vs model group), HO-1 (P < 0.05, P < 0.01 vs model group), GCLC (P < 0.01, P < 0.001 vs model group), and GCLM (P < 0.05, P < 0.01 vs model group) are significantly increased after Rg1 treatment, which were alleviated in transcription caused by OGD/R. Furthermore, the protein expression of the Nrf2 pathway was also investigated. Fig. 3c, d show that Rg1 increased the levels of expression of NQO-1, HO-1, GCLC, GCLM significantly at the concentrations of 0.10 μM and 1.00 μM. Collectively, the results suggest that Rg1 stimulates ARE activity in OGD/R and subsequently upregulates the expression of target mRNAs and proteins.
Rg1 improves OGD/R-induced neurotoxicity in a Nrf2-dependent manner
To investigate whether the neuroprotective effect of Rg1 acts via Nrf2 activation, Nrf2-siRNA was employed to block the expression of Nrf2. As shown in Fig. 4a, b, Nrf2-siRNA abolished the increase in nuclear accumulation of Nrf2 induced by Rg1 after OGD. Correspondingly, the ARE-luciferase activity and Nrf2 pathway were no longer enhanced by Rg1 as shown in Fig. 4c–e. We also found that Nrf2-siRNA silenced the neuroprotective effect of Rg1 after OGD/R, as exhibited by decreased cell viability and increased ROS levels (Fig. 4f, h). The above results demonstrated that the anti-OGD/R effect of Rg1 is dependent on the activation of Nrf2.
MiR-144 mediated the increased Nrf2 transcriptional activity by Rg1 under OGD
As previously mentioned, Rg1 had no effect on the expression of Keap1, though Nrf2 accumulation was enhanced significantly. It has been well documented that posttranscriptional regulation via microRNAs (miRNAs), such as miR-153, miR-144, and others, plays an important role in Nrf2/ARE activity in the central nervous system [33, 40]. In this study, qPCR evaluation showed that OGD/R raised miR-144 expression, while Rg1 treatment reversed it significantly (P < 0.01 vs model group, Fig. 5a). However, the expression of miR-144 is unaffected by the inhibition of Nrf2 expression by its siRNA, indicating that miR-144 is not regulated by Nrf2. It has been documented that miR-144 directly regulates Nrf2 and modulates the oxidative stress response in K562 cells [41]. To determine whether miR-144 could regulate Nrf2 activation directly in neurons, scramble control or miR-144 were transfected into PC12 cells and the nuclear and cytoplasmic accumulation of Nrf2 and ARE-luciferase activity were tested. As shown in Fig. 5b–e, miR-144 reduced both nuclear and cytoplasmic accumulation of Nrf2 compared to scramble control transfection (P < 0.001 vs scramble control-treated cells). Figure 5f showed that miR-144 transfection inhibited ARE-luciferase significantly (P < 0.001 vs scramble control-treated cells), which is consistent with findings in K562 cells [38].
According to TargetScan (www.targetscan.org), the 3’-untranslated region (3’-UTR) of Nrf2 is targeted by miR-144. To test whether the OGD/R-induced increased miR-144 directly targeted Nrf2 by binding to the 3’-UTR sequence, two reporters (Nrf2-3’UTR and miR-144-binding site mutated, Nrf2-3’-UTR-MUT) were constructed as shown in Fig. 5g. Both constructs were transfected into PC12 cells, followed by exposure to OGD/R with or without Rg1. MiR-144 was introduced as a positive control. As shown in Fig. 5h, OGD/R decreased luciferase activity in the Nrf2-3’-UTR group, (P < 0.01 vs control group), which is similar to the result in miR-144 exposure. Rg1 treatment was able to reverse this significantly (P < 0.01 vs OGD/R group). However, OGD/R showed no effect on the luciferase in Nrf2-3’-UTR-MUT group. As a positive control, miR-144 loses its inhibition on luciferase activity. These findings indicate that miR-144 blocks Nrf2 activity by targeting at the 3’-UTR of Nrf2. To determine whether OGD/R-induced decreased Nrf2 activity is due to miR-144, anti-miR-144, or control-anti-miR were transfected into PC12 cells along with Nrf2-3’-UTR, respectively. The results in Fig. 5i show that there is significantly decreased luciferase activity in control-anti-miR-treated cells after OGD/R. When miR-144 was absent owing to the anti-miR-144 transfection, OGD/R was unable to affect the luciferase activity. These results indicate that the repression of Nrf2 activity by OGD/R was due to the increase of miR-144 specifically. To further investigate the role of miR-144 on ARE luciferase, control-anti-miR or anti-miR-144 were also introduced into PC12 cells, respectively. We found that anti-miR-144 eliminated the decrease of ARE-luciferase induced by OGD/R (Fig. 5j). These findings further indicate that miR-144 suppressed Nrf2 transcriptional activity in PC12 cells after OGD/R.
Blockage of miR-144 silenced the anti-I/R effect of Rg1 in vivo
To further investigate a potential mechanistic role for miR-144 in the anti-I/R effect of Rg1 in vivo, we injected miR-144-shRNA in the predicted ischemic penumbra zone [31, 32] followed by tMCAO in SD rats to block the increased expression of miR-144 post-I/R. The result showed that Rg1 treatment at the dose of 2 mg/kg improved I/R outcomes in NC animals significantly (Fig. 6a–d), as manifested by decreased infarct volume (P < 0.05, Fig. 6a, b) and improved Longa’s score (P < 0.05, Fig. 6c) compared with the vehicle group. However, both of these improvements were erased by miR-144-shRNA administration, suggesting that miR-144 plays pivotal role in the anti-I/R effect of Rg1 in vivo.
We then investigated whether the improved outcomes are associated with the changes of oxidative stress status. Based on the ROS evaluation using DCFH-DA, we found that Rg1 administration decreased intracellular levels of ROS significantly (P < 0.05 vs vehicle-treated animals in NC group) and was erased by miR-144-shRNA administration (Fig. 6d, e). Furthermore, the fluorescence intensity of 8-OHDG staining was used to measure the amount of DNA oxidation products. As shown in Fig. 6f, g, the fluorescence intensity of 8-OHDG was significantly decreased by Rg1 treatment in NC group (P < 0.01 vs vehicle-treated animals), However, administration of miR-144-shRNA reduced the level of 8-OHDG remarkably when compared with that in NC-treated animals. All of these results suggested that inhibition of miR-144 blocks the anti-I/R effect of Rg1 in vivo.
Inhibition of miR-144 mimics the enhancement of Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway induced by Rg1 after I/R
The anti-I/R effect of Rg1 was significantly reduced in the absence of miR-144, which could interact with the 3’-UTR of Nrf2 directly in vitro. To determine whether miR-144 produces similar biological activities in vivo, the level of Nrf2 and its target genes were determined by qPCR and Western blotting 24 h after tMCAO. As shown in Fig. 7a, b, there is a significant increase in nuclear accumulation of Nrf2 after Rg1 treatment compared with the vehicle in NC animals. However, the increase induced by Rg1 was similar with the administration of miR-144-shRNA, suggesting that the inhibition of miR-144 in vivo has a similar effect on the nuclear accumulation of Nrf2 in vitro. With the increase of nuclear Nrf2, its target genes were also upregulated. As shown in Fig. 7c–g, the Western blot result showed that Rg1 treatment increased the expression of NQO-1 (P < 0.05), HO-1 (P < 0.05), GCLC (P < 0.01), and GCLM (P < 0.01) significantly in NC animals. Application of miR-144-shRNA promotes the expression of these proteins compared with that in NC animals but abolishes the improvement induced by Rg1 treatment. Quantitative PCR determination revealed similar changes with proteins correspondingly in Fig. 7h–k, showing no significant difference in expression after shRNA transfection with or without Rg1 treatment. All of these results suggested that miR-144 is required for the enhancement of the Nrf2/ARE pathway induced by Rg1 in I/R injury.
Discussion
Stroke is one of the leading causes of human death and disability [14] and lacks effective treatment. Rg1 is well documented to have a beneficial effect on the I/R-mediated neurotoxicity often experienced during strokes [6]. In this study, we found that Rg1 protects against I/R-induced neurotoxicity by improving nrf2 activity both in vivo and in vitro. We also found that the neuroprotective effect of Rg1 is dependent on the miR-144-Nrf2/ARE pathway, which provides a new clue for the treatment of ischemic stroke.
The neuroprotective actions of Rg1 have been documented to have beneficial effects in experimental stroke therapy, including improved neurological function, reduced infarct volume, improved BBB integrity, and other supporting evidence [6]. It has been proven that Rg1 protects the brain against oxidative stress in many pathological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease [42, 43], Alzheimer disease [44], d-galactose-induced brain aging [45], and others. Our previous study showed that Rg1’s hepatic protection effect was mainly due to its antioxidant activity [35, 46]. However, whether the efficacy of Rg1 against oxidative stress is involved in its antistroke capability has not been reported until now. To test this hypothesis, we treated PC12 cells with Rg1 or vehicle followed by OGD. We found that Rg1 significantly protects neurons against OGD/R from 0.01 μM to 1.00 μM in a concentration-dependent manner, as revealed by improved neural viability and reduced LDH release, displayed in Fig. 1b, c, we found that 1.00 μM exhibited the best therapeutic effect. When the concentration of Rg1 increased to 10.0 μM, the protective effect of Rg1 dropped; hence, the high concentration of Rg1 was not extensively investigated in this study. The lowest concentration of Rg1 in this study was 0.01 μM; Fig. 1c, d show that it is ineffective for reducing the level of LDH and production of ROS, the most direct stimulator for Nrf2, suggesting that the neuroprotective effect of Rg1 at the concentration of 0.01 μM may be unrelated to Nrf2. Therefore, higher or lower concentrations of Rg1 were not further investigated in this study.
It has been widely confirmed that I/R triggers a rapid and excessive ROS production, which promotes oxidative injury by lipid peroxidation, DNA peroxidation, etc. [11]. To test whether the neuroprotective effect of Rg1 is related to ROS, DCFH-DA staining was used to determine the level of intracellular ROS. We found that Rg1 treatment significantly reversed the post-I/R increase of ROS; likewise, the protective effect was exhibited in a concentration-dependent manner at a concentration between 0.10 μM and 1.00 μM (Fig. 1d). This finding is consistent with its efficacious concentration capable of reducing LDH release. These results suggest that the neuroprotective effect of Rg1 may be related to its ability to suppress excessive ROS release triggered by oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress occurs when intracellular ROS production overcomes intracellular antioxidative stress defenses [40], including enzymatic and non-enzymatic. Nrf2 is one of the master regulators of the expression of proteins involved in endogenous antioxidation defense [47], which is activated by excessive ROS release following IR injury. A number of studies have indicated that the expression of Nrf2 is largely increased in the acute phase of strokes [47]. Moreover, the change in Nrf2 level is mainly in neurons [21]. In our study, we found that Nrf2 nuclear accumulation induced by OGD/R in PC12 cells, begins at 2 h of OGD, peaks at 4 h, and decreases below baseline at ~ 8 h (Fig. 2a, b). Rg1 treatment significantly enhanced Nrf2 nuclear accumulation, as evidenced by a tendency of slower decline, going from 8 h and lasting for 24 h, which provides a solid basis for the promotion of antioxidation gene expression.
It is well known that the distribution and degradation of Nrf2 are regulated by its endogenous inhibitor Keap1 [46]. Keap1 is a homo-dimer with two canonical domains: one binds to Nrf2 and the other binds to E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, which keeps Nrf2 in the cytoplasm and promotes its degradation [19]. To determine the reason for increased nuclear accumulation of Nrf2 after I/R, the changes of Keap1 were investigated. As shown in Fig. 2c, d, we found that OGD/R decreased the Keap1 content in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus. Rg1 administration exhibited no effect on Keap1 expression, suggesting that the enhanced nuclear accumulation of Nrf2 induced by Rg1 may be a result of increased Nrf2 expression, rather than Keap1 regulation.
Nuclear Nrf2 forms heterodimers with bZIP proteins, recognizing the appropriate ARE sequences and then initiating the transcription of antioxidation genes harboring ARE, such as NQO-1 and HO-1, in their promoter region [23]. As the result of enhanced nuclear accumulation, we found that ARE-luciferase activity is enhanced by Rg1 directly (Fig. 3a), and then the activities of its downstream antioxidation genes and proteins are increased accordingly (Fig. 3b–d). All of these results suggested that the Nrf2/ARE pathway is activated by Rg1 after OGD/R. Nrf2-siRNA was used to investigate the role of Nrf2 in the anti-OGD/R effect of Rg1. Our results showed that Nrf2-siRNA significantly reduced Rg1’s neuroprotective effect in terms of ARE-luciferase activity, expression of downstream proteins, cell viability, LDH release, and ROS levels (Fig. 4c–h). These results indicate that the anti-OGD/R effect of Rg1 is in a Nrf2-dependent manner.
As previously mentioned, there is a significantly increased Nrf2 protein level compared with its mRNA contents, indicating that the increased nuclear portion of Nrf2 is owing to posttranscriptional regulation, such as by miRNAs. A number of miRNAs, such as miR-153 in the PD model [31, 40], miR-144 in the AD model [33] have been reported for their involvement in the regulation of Nrf2. In this study, we found that the level of miR-144 increased significantly after OGD/R, which exacerbated oxidative stress by inhibiting Nrf2 expression by targeting its 3’-UTR (Fig. 5a). MiR-144 was able to inhibit both the nuclear and cytoplasmic Nrf2 expression (Fig. 5b–e) and ARE-luciferase activity (Fig. 5f). Rg1 treatment reversed this effect significantly by releasing Nrf2 mRNA from miR-144 and promoting Nrf2 expression, shown in Fig. 5a. Moreover, we found that the expression of miR-144 was independent of Nrf2 activation in PC12 cells induced by OGD/R, as Nrf2-siRNA had no effect on the level of miR-144, shown in Fig. 5a. However, application of anti-miR-144 increased ARE-luciferase activity significantly (Fig. 5j), suggesting that miR-144 is an upstream regulator of Nrf2 expression. Furthermore, we found that miR-144 regulates Nrf2 by interacting with its 3’-UTR directly in PC12 cells, as shown in Fig. 5h. MiR-144 inhibited luciferase activity in the PC12 cells transfected with Nrf2-3’-UTR after OGD/R, but fails to do so in Nrf2-3’-UTR-MUT transfected cells. Rg1 treatment decreased the level of miR-144 significantly after OGD/R, which is also independent of Nrf2 level. Rg1’s ability to improve Nrf2 transcriptional activity is lost when Nrf2 3’-UTR was mutated in miR-144 seed sites. This suggests that miR-144 is the mediator of Rg1-induced activation of Nrf2/ARE pathway in vitro because Rg1 was no longer capable of promoting Nrf2 activity when the interaction between miR-144 and Nrf2 was inhibited.
Subsequently, we tested the role of miR-144 in the anti-I/R effect of Rg1 in vivo. Rg1 treatment improved the neural outcomes of tMCAO significantly at the dose of 20 mg/kg in NC-treated animals, including decreased infarct volume (Fig. 6a) and improved neurological scores (Fig. 6b), which are consistent with a previous study [7]. However, the application of miR-144-shRNA abolished these improvements significantly. The improved oxidative stress status mediated by Rg1, including lower intracellular ROS content (Fig. 6c) and DNA oxidative products (Fig. 6d–g), was also counteracted in miR-144-shRNA treated animals. Furthermore, we found that Rg1’s positive effect on the Nrf2/ARE pathway in I/R-induced neuron injury, including higher nuclear accumulation and target gene transcription and expression (Fig. 7), was also diminished by miR-144-shRNA administration. All of these results suggest that miR-144 plays a crucial role in mediating the Nrf2/ARE pathway in the anti-I/R effect of Rg1 in vivo.
Conclusions
In summary, we identified that the anti-I/R effect of Rg1 involves the Nrf2/ARE pathway and the underlying mechanism was clarified with posttranscriptional regulation of Nrf2 by miR-144. Furthermore (Fig. 8), we provide solid evidence for the direct regulatory effect of miR-144 on the Nrf2/ARE pathway in neurons, and confirmed that the enhanced Nrf2/ARE pathway mediated by Rg1 in I/R is dependent on miR-144. All of these results provide strong evidence in support of Rg1 as a promising drug target for the treatment of ischemic stroke.
Change history
29 April 2024
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41401-024-01272-1
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81603315, 81730096, 81603316, 81503275, 81730093, 81873026, U1402221), the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS) (2016-I2M-1-004), the State Key Laboratory Fund Open Project (GTZK201610), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013M540066), the PUMC Graduate Education and Teaching Reform Project (10023201600801), the Bei**g Key Laboratory of New Drug Mechanisms and Pharmacological Evaluation Study (BZ0150), the opening Program of Shanxi Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Encephalopathy (CME-OP-2017001), and the Hunan Chinese Herbal Medicine and standardization functions Engineering Research Center (BG201701).
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N.-h.C. designed research; S.-f.C. and Z.Z. performed the cell experiments and Nrf2-related determination; **n Zhou, Chen Chen, and Dan-dan Liu prepared the animal models; W.-B.H. guided the animal experiments; P.L., Z.-z.W. and Q.-d.A. determined ROS and 8-OHDG in brain slide; S.-f.C., H.-f.G., H.-S.S. and Z.-P.F. wrote the paper.
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Chu, Sf., Zhang, Z., Zhou, X. et al. Ginsenoside Rg1 protects against ischemic/reperfusion-induced neuronal injury through miR-144/Nrf2/ARE pathway. Acta Pharmacol Sin 40, 13–25 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41401-018-0154-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41401-018-0154-z
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