Catestatin enhances ATP-induced activation of glial cells mediated by purinergic receptor P2X₄

Abstract

The activation of glial cells and its possible mechanism play an extremely important role in understanding the pathophysiological process of some clinical diseases, and catestatin (CST) is involved in regulating this activation. In this project, we found that CST could enhance the activation of satellite glial cells (SGCs) and microglial cells and that the expression of P2X₄ was increased; the co-expression of the P2X₄ receptor with glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and the P2X₄ receptor with CD11b was also increased significantly in glial cells of the ATP + CST group, and TNF-α and IL-1β also showed a rising trend; the expression of phosphorylated ERK1/2 was also increased in the ATP + CST group. In summary, we conclude that CST could enhance ATP-induced activation of SGCs and microglial cells mediated by the P2X₄ receptor and that the ERK1/2 signaling pathway may be involved in this activation process.

Keywords:

• Catestatin
• ATP
• P2X₄ receptor
• microglia
• satellite glial cells

Acknowledgments

The authors express their heartfelt thanks to those who have contributed to their research. Thanks to the Department of Laboratory Animal Science of Nanchang University for providing laboratory animals. The authors also convey their sincere thanks to Shangdong Liang, Ph.D., in Nanchang University who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Nos.: 81660199, 81260187] and the Innovation Fund of the Graduate School of Nanchang University [No.: CX2018170].