Bioinformatics-based study to identify immune infiltration and inflammatory-related hub genes as biomarkers for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease whose principal pathological change is aggressive chronic synovial inflammation; however, the specific etiology and pathogenesis have not been fully elucidated. We downloaded the synovial tissue gene expression profiles of four human knees from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, analyzed the differentially expressed genes in the normal and RA groups, and assessed their enrichment in functions and pathways using bioinformatics methods and the STRING online database to establish protein-protein interaction networks. Cytoscape software was used to obtain 10 hub genes; receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated for each hub gene and differential expression analysis of the two groups of hub genes.

Evodiamine attenuates adjuvant-induced arthritis in rats by inhibiting synovial inflammation and restoring the Th17/Treg balance.

Objectives: Evodiamine (Evo) possesses strong anti-inflammatory activity. In this study, we determine the antiarthritic effect of Evo.

Methods: Evo was administered to rats with adjuvant-induced arthritis (AA).

Epidermal growth factor increases the expression of Nestin in rat reactive astrocytes through the Ras-Raf-ERK pathway.

Astrocytes undergo de-differentiation and become activated during a response to injury. Several studies have found that reactive astrocytes re-express markers, such as Nestin, which are normally expressed in neural stem cells. It was recently shown that the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is up-regulated in astrocytes after injury and promotes reactive astrocyte transformation.

Chordin-like protein 1 promotes neuronal differentiation by inhibiting bone morphogenetic protein-4 in neural stem cells.

In the present study, the effects of chordin‑like protein 1 (CHRDL1) overexpression, together with bone morphogenetic protein‑4 (BMP‑4) treatment, on the differentiation of rat spinal cord‑derived neural stem cells (NSCs) was investigated. Adult rat spinal cord‑derived NSCs were cultured in serum‑free medium. The recombined eukaryotic expression vector pSecTag2/Hygro B‑CHRDL1 was transfected into adult rat spinal cord‑derived NSCs using a lipid‑based transfection reagent and protein expression was assessed by western blot analysis.