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It is increasingly aware that gut microbiota is closely associated with atherosclerosis. However, which and how specific gut bacteria regulate the progression of atherosclerosis is still poorly understood. In this study, modified linear discriminant analysis was performed in comparing the gut microbiota structures of atherosclerotic and non-atherosclerotic mice, and Desulfovibrio desulfuricans (D. desulfuricans) was found to be associated with atherosclerosis. D. desulfuricans-treated Apoe−/− mice showed significantly aggravated atherosclerosis. The proatherogenic effect of D. desulfuricans was attributed to its ability to increase intestinal permeability and subsequent raise in the transit of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from the intestine to the bloodstream. Excessive LPS in the blood can elicit local and systemic inflammation and activate Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)/nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling of endothelial cells. TAK-242, a specific inhibitor of TLR4, can ameliorate the development of D. desulfuricans-induced atherosclerosis by blocking the LPS-induced activation of TLR4/NF-κB signaling.
The author would like to thank Professor Mingxing Lei, Dr. Yuan Zhu, Adil Hassan, Ms. Yuan Zhong and all other members of Professor Guixue Wang's laboratory for their constructive discussions and support for the daily experimental work as well as the support from the Public Experiment Center of State Bioindustrial Base (Chongqing), China.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).