Abnormal sympathetic activity after myocardial ischemia involving P2X4 in dorsal root ganglia

Yingxin Gong  ¹ , Yanhong Zhou  ¹ , Jingjian Yang  ¹ , Shunhua Li  ¹ , Zilin Wang  ¹ , Jingan Rao  ¹ , Lin Li  ² , Huilong Yuan  ² , Liran Shi  ² , Runan Yang  ² , Xiumei Xu  ² , Shuangmei Liu  ² , Shangdong Liang  ³ , Lifang Zou  ⁴ Affiliations

• PMID: 31051227
• DOI: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2019.04.024

Abstract

The satellite glial cells (SGCs) of the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) expressed P2X4 receptor. In this study, we investigated the abnormal sympathetic activity after myocardial ischemia (MI) involving P2X4 receptor in the cervical DRG SGC. The results showed that MI injury upregulated the P2X4 receptor mRNA and protein in DRG, and the upregulated P2X4 receptor was co-localized with glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in DRG SGCs. P2X4 short hairpin RNA (shRNA) treatment decreased the expression of P2X4 receptor, counteracted the upregulation of GFAP and IL-1β and inhibited P38MAPK phosphorylation in DRG of MI rats. These results indicate that application of P2X4 shRNA may reduce P2X4-mediated nociceptive signal via inhibiting DRG afferents to alleviate the abnormal sympathetic activity induced by MI.

Keywords: Abnormal sympathetic activity; Dorsal root ganglia; Myocardial ischemia; P2X4 receptor; Satellite glial cells.