Introduction
Cerebral ischemia is a leading cause of mortality and severe neurological disability [
1]. The impairment of systemic immune responses following brain ischemia is thought to protect the brain from further inflammatory insults, but it simultaneously increases susceptibility to infections, such as pneumonia and urinary tract infections [
2]. Natural killer (NK) cells are innate lymphoid cells that are critical for host defense against infection. In a prior study, we demonstrated that neuroendocrine pathways inhibited NK cell responses in the central nervous system (CNS) and the periphery after ischemic stroke, and identified SOCS3- and RUNX3-mediated molecular pathways that were differentially modulated in NK cells [
3]. Apart from transcriptional regulation, recent studies have suggested that posttranscriptional regulation, including the action of microRNAs (miRNAs), partially controls specialized NK cell effector functions, including activation as well as IFN-γ and granzyme production.
miRNAs are short (∼ 22 nt) endogenous noncoding RNAs that target protein-coding mRNAs for translational repression or degradation [
4]. miRNAs are involved in a variety of physiological and pathological life processes [
5] and play central roles closely associated with ischemic stroke, such as proliferation, hematopoiesis, metabolism, immune function, and immune depression after stroke [
6]. In vivo mouse and human studies revealed temporal changes in miRNA expression during stroke progression, which may modulate several pathogenic processes that contribute to stroke etiology, including atherosclerosis (miR-21, miR-126), hyperlipidemia (miR-33, miR-125a-5p), hypertension (miR-155), and plaque rupture (miR-222, miR-210) [
7]. Further studies reported that miRNAs can be used as prognostic, diagnostic, and therapeutic biomarkers of stroke [
8,
9].
miRNAs have been demonstrated to play an indispensable role in the innate immune response by regulating leukocyte development [
10,
11]. Previous studies using individual gain- and loss-of-function miRNAs in NK cells have demonstrated the roles of specific miRNAs in regulating NK cell development, maturation, and activation [
12‐
17]. miRNAs also regulate fundamental NK cell processes such as cytokine production, cytotoxicity, and proliferation [
18]. Huang et al. reported that overexpression of miR-30e inhibited cytotoxic activity in NK cells activated by IFN-α [
19]. Xu et al. found that miR-146a exhibited a negative regulatory effect on NK cell functions by targeting STAT1 and that miR-146a could be induced by anti-inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-10 and TGF-β [
20]. However, it is still unclear whether miRNAs are involved in NK cell phenotype variation after ischemic stroke and especially whether these molecules contribute to poststroke immunosuppression. Using RNA sequencing technology, we identified a variety of miRNAs that were upregulated in NK cells after ischemic stroke. The most promising candidate was miR-1224, which inhibited the activation and cytotoxicity of NK cells through the Sp1/IFN-γ signaling pathway in the periphery. Sp1 belongs to the specificity protein (Sp)/Kruppel-like transcription factor family, a group of proteins that recognize G-rich promoter elements (the GC box and the related GT box) and are expressed in most mammalian cell types. The Sp1 transcription factor is thought to regulate generic processes such as the cell cycle and growth control, metabolic pathways, and apoptosis [
21]. Our data demonstrated that targeting miR-1224 in NK cells may be a novel strategy to potentiate immune defense in the periphery and prevent poststroke infection through a mechanism that depends on Sp1 signaling.
Materials and methods
Animals
Male C57BL/6 mice were purchased from Taconic (Oxnard, CA, USA). NOD-Prkdc
scid IL2rg
−/− mice (stock no. VS-AM-001) were provided by Vitalstar Biotechnology (Beijing, China) [
22]. Heterozygous Sp1-knockout mice were purchased from GemPharmatech (Wilmington, DE, USA). Briefly, sgRNA was transcribed in vitro. Cas9 and sgRNA were microinjected into the fertilized eggs of C57BL/6 mice. Fertilized eggs were transplanted to obtain positive F0 mice, whose genotype was confirmed by PCR and sequencing. A stable F1 generation mouse model was obtained by mating positive F0 generation mice with C57BL/6 mice. Age-matched, 10- to 12-week-old male littermates weighing 20 to 25 g were used in each experimental group. All mice were housed in standard conditions at 22.2 °C with a 12/12-h light/dark cycle and had ad libitum access to food and water. All experiments were conducted in accordance with the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines (
https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines) [
23] and approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of Tianjin Neurological Institute and Tianjin Medical University (Tianjin, China).
Induction of middle cerebral artery occlusion mouse model
Middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) was induced in 10- to 12-week-old mice as described previously [
24,
25]. Animals were anesthetized by intraperitoneal injection of 5% chloral hydrate (30 mg/kg). A heating blanket was used throughout surgery to maintain the body temperature of the animals at 37.0 ± 0.5 °C until they awoke from anesthesia. The left common carotid artery, external carotid artery, and internal carotid artery were exposed through an incision and then isolated and ligated. A 5–0 nylon monofilament was inserted through the common carotid artery into the internal carotid artery and advanced to the beginning of the middle cerebral artery. The occlusion and reperfusion of the middle cerebral artery were monitored with a laser Doppler blood flowmeter (model P10, Moor Instruments, Wilmington, DE, USA) positioned 1 mm posterior and 3 mm to the left of bregma. After 60 min of ischemia, the nylon monofilament was removed to restore blood flow. We included only mice that had a residual cerebral blood flow (CBF) < 15% throughout the ischemic period and recovered > 80% of baseline CBF within 10 min of reperfusion. Sham control mice were subjected to the same surgical procedure, except that the nylon monofilament was not advanced far enough to occlude the middle cerebral artery.
Neurological assessment
Behavior tests were performed on day 1 and day 3 post-MCAO by two investigators who were blinded to the experimental group assignment; the procedures were as previously described [
26,
27]. The modified neurological severity score (mNSS) was used to evaluate sensory and motor function, reflexes, and balance. After recovering from MCAO surgery, each mouse was assessed on a scale from 0 to 18. The higher the score, the more severe the impairment was. The corner test was used to evaluate sensorimotor and postural asymmetries. All the mice were allowed to enter a 30° corner and then freely turn either left or right to exit the corner. The choice of direction was recorded in 10 trials, and the percentage of left turns was calculated. The rotarod test aims to assess systemic motor function. Every mouse was trained 3 days before MCAO surgery and tested 3 times daily after MCAO. The speed was increased from 4 to 40 rpm at an acceleration rate of 20 rpm/min and then continued at 40 rpm, for a total test duration of up to 10 min. The latency to fall off the rotating rod was recorded by an investigator who was blinded to the experimental treatments, and the mean of three trials was used for analysis.
Neuroimaging
The infarct size in the MCAO model was evaluated with a 7-T small-animal MRI scanner as previously described (Bruker Daltonics Inc., Billerica, MA, USA) [
3]. Anesthesia was induced with 5% isoflurane and maintained with 1.0–2.0% isoflurane in 70% N
2O and 30% O
2. Mice were placed on a heat-regulated blanket to maintain their body temperatures at 37.0 ± 0.5 °C during the scans. T2-weighted images of the brain were used to detect the infarct size in the MCAO mouse model; these images were obtained with a fat-suppressed rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement sequence (repetition time = 4000 ms, echo time = 60 ms, field of view = 19.2 × 19.2 mm
2, matrix size = 192 × 192, slice thickness = 0.5 mm). The MRI data were analyzed with ImageJ software (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA).
Isolation of NK cells
NK cells were sorted from spleens on days 1, 3, and 7 after MCAO or the sham operation as previously described [
3]. For RNA sequencing, NK cells were isolated via flow cytometry with high purity (≥ 99%) and viability. For adoptive transfer, magnetic-bead sorting system was used to enrich the NK cells in a cell suspension from the spleens of MCAO mice or sham-operated mice by applying anti-NK1.1 microbeads (Miltenyi Biotec, San Diego, CA, USA). Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) was used to analyze isolated cells and to determine the efficiency of NK cell sorting and the purity of the products.
miRNA expression
NK cells were sorted from spleens on days 1, 3, and 7 after MCAO or the sham operation as previously described [
3]. TRIzol Reagent (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) and a total RNA isolation kit (Qiagen, Germantown, MD, USA) were used according to the manufacturer’s protocol to isolate total RNA from NK cells pooled from 15 mice per data point. Then, the RNAs were analyzed with an nCounter miRNA Expression Assay (NanoString Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA, USA), which can detect multiple miRNAs.
Normalizing and analyzing NanoString data
Raw miRNA data were analyzed by nSolver Analysis Software v.3.0 (NanoString Technologies, Inc.). Data were normalized by using positive and negative controls and housekeeping gene probes. After all relevant correction and normalization steps were performed, statistical tests were applied to identify differentially expressed miRNAs. The resulting p values were adjusted by using the false discovery rate (FDR) procedure. miRNAs with an FDR value of < 0.05 and a fold change of > 2.0 were considered to be significantly differentially expressed.
Prediction of miRNA target genes and construction of the miRNA-mRNA network
The miRNA target prediction tools TargetScan and miRanda were utilized to further explore the target mRNAs that were regulated by differentially expressed miRNAs. By combining the differentially expressed miRNAs and mRNAs as well as the predicted targets for these miRNAs, a core miRNA-mRNA regulatory network was constructed by using Cytoscape software.
GO analysis and KEGG pathway analysis
Gene Ontology (GO) analysis [
28] was applied to analyze the main functions of the specific genes with significant differences in the representative profiles of miRNA target genes. Fisher’s exact test was applied to determine the significant GO categories, and p values were corrected by FDR. Only GO terms that had p values of < 0.001 and FDR values of < 0.05 were chosen. Enrichment provides a measure of the specificity of a function: the greater the enrichment, the more specific the corresponding function is, which helped us identify the GO terms with the most concrete functional descriptions in the experiment.
Pathway analysis was used to identify the significant pathways of the differentially expressed genes [
29]. Pathway annotations of microarray genes were downloaded from the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG,
http://www.genome.jp/kegg/). Fisher’s exact test was also used to identify the significantly enriched pathways. The resulting p values were adjusted using the Benjamini–Hochberg FDR algorithm. Pathway categories with p values < 0.05 are reported.
Real-time PCR
Quantitative real-time PCR was performed as previously described [
3]. Total RNA was extracted from NK cells with TRIzol Reagent (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) and a total RNA isolation kit (Qiagen). Then, cDNA from sorted NK cells was synthesized with a SuperScript III First Strand cDNA Synthesis kit (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) and analyzed by normalizing the expression of the gene of interest to GAPDH. Quantitative real-time PCR was performed using SsoAdvanced™ SYBR® Green Supermix (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA) on the CFX96 Real-time PCR Detection System (Bio-Rad).
Synthesis of miR-1224 mimics and inhibitors
The miR-1224 mimics and inhibitors, as well as a negative control of miRNA, were synthesized by GenePharma (Shanghai, China) with the following sequences: miR-1224 mimics (5′-GUGAGGACUGGGGAGGUGGAG-3′, R: 5′-CCACCUCCCCAGUCCUCACUU-3′), miR-1224 inhibitors (5′-CUCCACCUCCCCAGUCCUCAC-3′), and negative control (5′-UUCUCCGAACGUGUCACGUTT-3′).
Transfection and passive transfer of NK cells
After being stained with anti-NK1.1 microbeads, NK cells were sorted by a direct magnetic cell labeling system (Miltenyi Biotec) from the pooled splenocytes of wild-type mice. Next, NK cells were cultured in RPMI medium (Gibco, Grand Island, NY, USA) with 10% FBS (Gibco) and 1% penicillin/streptomycin (Solarbio, Beijing, China) and then transfected with 100 pmol miR-1224 mimics, inhibitor, or negative control using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. After transfection, NK cells were cultured in vitro at 37 °C for 24 h, and the transfected NK cells were then injected into NOD-Prkdcscid IL2rg−/− mice via the tail vein before MCAO model induction.
Flow cytometry
Single-cell suspensions were prepared from the spleen or digested from the brain and stained with fluorochrome-conjugated antibodies. Antibodies against the following antigens were used: CD45 (30-F11), CD3 (145- 2C11), NK1.1 (PK136), NKG2A (18d3), KLRG1 (2F1), NKG2D (CX5), CD25 (PC61), CD69 (H1.2F3), IFN-γ (XMG1.2), and perforin (S16009A). Flow cytometry data were collected with a FACSAria III (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA, USA) and analyzed by FlowJo 7.6 software (Informer Technologies, Walnut, CA, USA).
Microbiologic analyses (CFU assay)
In order to observe lung infection after stroke, lung tissue was collected using aseptic techniques under sterile conditions on day 3 after MCAO. Lungs were ground with a pestle at a laminar flow bench to form a homogenate and serially diluted with PBS. The dilutions ranged from 1:5 to 1:1000. All procedures were performed in a sterile environment to avoid bacterial contamination. Agar plates (Solarbio) were inoculated with gradient concentrations of lung tissue homogenate and incubated for 24 h in a 37 °C incubator. Then, the growth colonies were counted by the following method: CFU/mL = (no. of colonies × dilution factor)/volume of culture plate.
Statistical analysis
All data were analyzed by investigators who were blinded to all groups. No statistical methods were used to predetermine sample sizes, but our sample sizes were similar to those reported in previous publications. Animals were randomly assigned to experimental groups. Statistical analysis was conducted on data from three or more biologically independent experimental replicates. Data are shown as the mean ± SEM. Mean values were compared using Student’s t-test for comparisons between 2 groups and 1-way or 2-way repeated-measures ANOVA with a post hoc Bonferroni test for comparisons among more than 2 groups. p values < 0.05 were taken to indicate statistically significant differences. All statistical analyses were performed using GraphPad Prism 8.0 software (GraphPad, San Diego, CA, USA).
Discussion
Several studies in a variety of diseases have helped to clarify the contribution of miRNAs to NK cell developmental intermediates and subsets, their role in tissues, and their significance in the context of disease. In the present study, we performed miRNA sequencing analysis on circulating NK cell populations isolated from an MCAO mouse model. Our data suggest that miR-1224 negatively regulates NK cell activation and IFN-γ release in an Sp1-dependent manner.
Pulmonary infection is a common complication of acute ischemic stroke. Two large international clinical trials revealed that prophylactic antibiotics did not prevent lung infection or improve neurological outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke [
36,
37]. NK cells have been demonstrated to exacerbate brain infarction after ischemic stroke by promoting local inflammation and neuronal hyperactivity [
38]. A previous study showed that patients in the acute phase of ischemic stroke (< 24 h) displayed significant atrophy of the spleen, as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In addition to spleen size, the number of circulating NK cells was also significantly reduced. We have previously investigated the interaction between the nervous and immune systems in the context of brain ischemia, focusing on NK cells. We demonstrated that distinct neuroendocrine pathways inhibited NK cell responses in the CNS and the periphery and identified intracellular pathways that were differentially modulated in NK cells in the brain and spleen [
3]. However, the current understanding of the basic molecular mechanisms regulating NK cell activation and function after ischemic stroke is still incomplete, especially at the posttranscriptional level. A number of studies have reported the expression of miRNAs by NK cells, their contribution to cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic control of NK cell development and effector response, and their dysregulation in NK cells during pathogenesis. For example, miR-27a-5p [
39], miR-30e [
40], and miR-150 [
41] negatively regulate NK cell cytotoxicity by targeting perforin [
40,
41], while miR-27a-5p targets both granzyme B and perforin [
39]. In contrast, Ni and colleagues found that perforin, granzyme, IFN-γ, and CD107a in human NK cells were all upregulated after miR-362-5p overexpression, which means that miR-362-5p promotes NK cell effector functions [
42]. Our present study identified a new target, miR-1224, which is one of the most important molecules mediating NK cell suppression after brain ischemia. We found that miR-1224 may suppress NK cell function through the Sp1 pathway after ischemic stroke. A related study demonstrated that miR-1224 decreased TNF-α by targeting the Sp1 protein in LPS-treated WT mice, which is in agreement with our finding [
32]. Taken together, our results confirmed the posttranscriptional regulatory action of miR-1224 on NK cells after brain ischemia and suggested miR-1224–Sp1–IFN-γ signaling as its potential pathway.
In addition to the local inflammatory immune response in the brain, ischemic stroke strikingly alters systemic inflammation, leaving patients susceptible to immunosuppression and infections, which are related to poor functional outcomes and increased morbidity [
43]. The impact of brain ischemia on the immune system has been documented mostly in peripheral lymphocytes [
34,
44,
45], particularly in the spleen, which shrinks because of the apoptotic death of splenocytes and the migration of cells into the brain parenchyma [
46]. In our study, we confirmed that miR-1224 suppressed NK cell activation and cytotoxicity specifically in the periphery rather than in the brain. Our data established that it is possible to enhance the cytotoxicity of peripheral NK cells by targeting miR-1224 while preserving the immunosuppression of brain-infiltrating NK cells to avoid aggravated intracerebral inflammation. This result is interesting and seemingly paradoxical because studies by our team and others have all suggested that NK cells can migrate into the brain parenchyma after brain ischemia. In our previous research, we found that distinct neuroendocrine pathways differentially inhibit NK cell responses in the central nervous system and the periphery after cerebral infarction [
2,
3]. As the switching of neuroendocrine status is accompanied by key miRNA alterations [
47], we speculate that crosstalk among neurogenic pathways, transcription, and posttranscriptional signaling may contribute to immune cell functions after ischemic stroke; this topic needs further investigation.
Our study has limitations that remain to be resolved in the future. First, although we found that miR-1224 may serve as a negative regulator of NK cell function after ischemic stroke, we cannot ignore the potential involvement of other miRNAs in the pathology of ischemic stroke. For example, although miR-1224 was the most promising candidate from our screening, miRNA-451a and miRNA-122-5p were also found to be upregulated in the miRNA array and have also been documented to have inhibitory effects on the activation of NK cells [
48]. Another limitation of this study lies in the short lifetime of transfected cells: genetic response from NK cells can be detected only within a limited period after transfection. Such a transient response cannot faithfully represent the long-term change in NK cells after stroke. Therefore, future research will investigate more efficient modulation methods for long-term studies.
In summary, our study indicated that miR-1224 suppresses NK cell function through Sp1 after ischemic stroke, especially in the periphery. These results suggest that blocking miR-1224 biogenesis or administering a miR-1224 antagonist might be a viable therapeutic approach for poststroke immunosuppression and infection.
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