Laboratory of Nutrition, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, 468-1 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8572, Japan.
International Education and Research Center for Food Agricultural Immunology, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, 468-1 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8572, Japan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2019 May 10;20(9):2317. doi: 10.3390/ijms20092317.
The overactivation of microglia is known to trigger inflammatory reactions in the central nervous system, which ultimately induce neuroinflammatory disorders including Alzheimer's disease. However, increasing evidence has shown that menaquinone-4 (MK-4), a subtype of vitamin K, can attenuate inflammation in the peripheral system. Whereas it was also observed at high levels within the brain, its function in this organ has not been well characterized. Therefore, we investigated the effect of MK-4 on microglial activation and clarified the underlying mechanism. Mouse microglia-derived MG6 cells were exposed to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) either with or without MK-4 pretreatment. Cell responses with respect to inflammatory cytokines (, , and ) were measured by qRT-PCR. We further analyzed the phosphorylation of TAK1, IKKα/β, and p65 of the NF-κB subunit by Western blotting. We observed that in LPS-induced MG6 cells, MK-4 dose-dependently suppressed the upregulation of inflammatory cytokines at the mRNA level. It also significantly decreased the phosphorylation of p65, but did not affect that TAK1 and IKKα/β. Furthermore, the nuclear translocation of NF-κB in LPS-induced MG6 cells was inhibited by MK-4. These results indicate that MK-4 attenuates microglial inflammation by inhibiting NF-κB signaling.
小胶质细胞的过度激活被认为会引发中枢神经系统的炎症反应,最终导致神经炎症性疾病,包括阿尔茨海默病。然而,越来越多的证据表明,维生素 K 的一种亚型——甲萘醌-4(MK-4),可以减轻外周系统的炎症。虽然在大脑中也观察到高水平的 MK-4,但它在该器官中的功能尚未得到很好的描述。因此,我们研究了 MK-4 对小胶质细胞激活的影响,并阐明了其潜在机制。用或不用 MK-4 预处理,将脂多糖(LPS)暴露于源自小鼠小胶质细胞的 MG6 细胞中。通过 qRT-PCR 测量细胞对炎症细胞因子( 、 和 )的反应。我们进一步通过 Western blot 分析了 TAK1、IKKα/β 和 NF-κB 亚基 p65 的磷酸化。我们观察到,在 LPS 诱导的 MG6 细胞中,MK-4 呈剂量依赖性地下调炎症细胞因子在 mRNA 水平的上调。它还显著降低了 p65 的磷酸化,但对 TAK1 和 IKKα/β 没有影响。此外,MK-4 抑制了 LPS 诱导的 MG6 细胞中 NF-κB 的核转位。这些结果表明,MK-4 通过抑制 NF-κB 信号通路来减轻小胶质细胞炎症。