Huang Xun, He Jiexiang, Liu Mingxian, Zhou Changren
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510630, China ; Engineering Research Center of Artificial Organs and Materials, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510630, China.
Nanoscale Res Lett. 2014 Sep 21;9(1):518. doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-9-518. eCollection 2014.
Although much progress has been made in the illustration of the mechanism of aminophylline (AM) treating asthma, there is no data about its effect on the nanostructure and nanomechanics of T lymphocytes. Here, we presented atomic force spectroscopy (AFM)-based investigations at the nanoscale level to address the above fundamental biophysical questions. As increasing AM treatment time, T lymphocytes' volume nearly double increased and then decreased. The changes of nanostructural features of the cell membrane, i.e., mean height of particles, root-mean-square roughness (Rq), crack and fragment appearance, increased with AM treatment time. T lymphocytes were completely destroyed with 96-h treatment, and they existed in the form of small fragments. Analysis of force-distance curves showed that the adhesion force of cell surface decreased significantly with the increase of AM treatment time, while the cell stiffness increased firstly and then decreased. These changes were closely correlated to the characteristics and process of cell oncosis. In total, these quantitative and qualitative changes of T lymphocytes' structure and nanomechanical properties suggested that AM could induce T lymphocyte oncosis to exert anti-inflammatory effects for treating asthma. These findings provide new insights into the T lymphocyte oncosis and the anti-inflammatory mechanism and immune regulation actions of AM.
尽管在阐明氨茶碱（AM）治疗哮喘的机制方面已取得很大进展，但尚无关于其对T淋巴细胞纳米结构和纳米力学影响的数据。在此，我们进行了基于原子力光谱（AFM）的纳米级研究，以解决上述基本生物物理问题。随着AM处理时间的增加，T淋巴细胞的体积几乎呈双倍增加然后减少。细胞膜纳米结构特征的变化，即颗粒的平均高度、均方根粗糙度（Rq）、裂纹和碎片出现情况，随AM处理时间增加。经96小时处理后T淋巴细胞被完全破坏，它们以小碎片的形式存在。力-距离曲线分析表明，细胞表面的粘附力随AM处理时间的增加而显著降低，而细胞硬度先增加后降低。这些变化与细胞胀亡的特征和过程密切相关。总之，T淋巴细胞结构和纳米力学性能的这些定量和定性变化表明，AM可诱导T淋巴细胞胀亡以发挥抗炎作用来治疗哮喘。这些发现为T淋巴细胞胀亡以及AM的抗炎机制和免疫调节作用提供了新的见解。
