Pluripotent anti-inflammatory immunomodulatory effects of papaverine against cerebral ischemic-reperfusion injury

J Pharmacol Sci. 2020 Oct;144(2):69-75. doi: 10.1016/j.jphs.2020.07.008. Epub 2020 Jul 17.

Abstract

The mechanism of the papaverine (PV) for the treatment of cerebral ischemia remains unclear. A total of 42 mice induced with focal cerebral ischemia were randomly divided into three groups: PV,baicalin (BA)and vehicle group. Both PV and BA could significantly reduce the ischemic infarct volume (P < 0.05). Pathway enrichment analysis was performed on MetaCore™ to search the molecular pathways associated with the gene expression profile of PV, compared with vehicle and BA. Compared with vehicle, we found that 60% of the top 10 pathways in PV group were related to immune response. The top 10 biological processes of the targeted pathways were mainly related to the multiple immunomodulatory process of neuro-vascular inflammation, including immune_Th17-deried cytokins, regulation of angiogenesis, cell adhesion_Leucocyte chemotaxis, antigen presentation, cell adhesion_synaptic contact, and inflammation related to Amphoterin signaling. Moreover, compared with BA, 17 pathways of PV were identified, and 58.82% (10/17) were also related to immune response, especially, half of the top 10 pathways with the lower p-value. In these top 10 pathways, 4 were the cytokine-mediated signaling pathways, which play key role in inflammation, like IL-17 signaling pathways with the activation of G-CSF,IL-23,RANKL, p38MAPK and NF-κB.These findings indicate that PV may be an efficacious pluripotent anti-inflammatory agent against cerebral ischemic-reperfusion injury by targeting on multiple immunomodulatory process of neuro-vascular inflammation.

Keywords: Anti-inflammation; Cerebral ischemia; Immune response; Ischemic-reperfusion; Papaverine.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Anti-Inflammatory Agents*
  • Brain Ischemia / drug therapy*
  • Brain Ischemia / genetics*
  • Cytokines / genetics
  • Cytokines / metabolism
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Gene Expression / drug effects
  • Gene Expression / genetics
  • HMGB1 Protein / genetics
  • HMGB1 Protein / metabolism
  • Immunologic Factors*
  • Inflammation
  • Interleukin-17 / genetics
  • Interleukin-17 / metabolism
  • Male
  • Mice, Inbred Strains
  • NF-kappa B / genetics
  • NF-kappa B / metabolism
  • Papaverine / pharmacology*
  • Papaverine / therapeutic use*
  • Reperfusion Injury / drug therapy*
  • Reperfusion Injury / genetics*
  • Signal Transduction / drug effects
  • Signal Transduction / genetics

Substances

  • Anti-Inflammatory Agents
  • Cytokines
  • HMGB1 Protein
  • Il17a protein, mouse
  • Immunologic Factors
  • Interleukin-17
  • NF-kappa B
  • Papaverine