Cherry Wongtrakool, Junsuk Ko, Andrew J Jang, Kora Grooms, Sarah Chang, Cory Sylber, Beata Kosmider, Karim Bahmed, Michael R Blackburn, Roy L Sutliff, C Michael Hart, Changwon Park, Toru Nyunoya, Michael J Passineau, Qing Lu, Bum-Yong Kang
Evolving evidence suggests that nicotine may contribute to impaired asthma control by stimulating expression of nerve growth factor (NGF), a neurotrophin associated with airway remodeling and airway hyperresponsiveness. We explored the hypothesis that nicotine increases NGF by reducing lung fibroblast (LF) microRNA-98 (miR-98) and PPARγ levels, thus promoting airway remodeling. Levels of NGF, miR-98, PPARγ, fibronectin 1 (FN1), endothelin-1 (EDN1, herein referred to as ET-1), and collagen (COL1A1 and COL3A1) were measured in human LFs isolated from smoking donors, in mouse primary LFs exposed to nicotine (50 μg/ml), and in whole lung homogenates from mice chronically exposed to nicotine (100 μg/ml) in the drinking water...
December 25, 2020: Journal of Biological Chemistry