Cadmium exposure induces inflammation and necroptosis in porcine adrenal gland via activating NF-κB/MAPK pathway

Abstract

Cadmium (Cd) is a heavy metal harmful to animals and humans. Cd exposure causes inflammation or necroptosis in many tissues, including adrenal tissue. However, the current researches on the effects of Cd²⁺ in adrenal tissues are not enough. Therefore, in our experiment Cd chloride (CdCl₂) was added to the piglet's diet at a concentration of 20 mg/kg to study the effects of Cd²⁺ exposure on the porcine adrenal tissue. Our results showed that Cd²⁺ exposure could cause inflammation by activating the nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) pathway, which in turn induced necroptosis in adrenal tissue with the activated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. The expression increase of inflammatory factors and necroptosis downstream genes, and the downregualtion of cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase 8 (Caspase 8) proved that Cd²⁺ exposure caused inflammation and necroptosis in adrenal tissue. We conclude that this report provides more basic theoretical data for exploring the mechanism of adrenal injury.

Keywords: Adrenal gland; Cadmium; Inflammation; MAPK pathway; NF-κB payhway; Necroptosis.