S-adenosylmethionine prevents the up regulation of Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling caused by chronic ethanol feeding in rats

Toll-like receptors (TLR) play a role in mediating the proinflammatory response, fibrogenesis and carcinogenesis in chronic liver diseases such as alcoholic liver disease, non-alcoholic liver disease, hepatitis C and hepatocellular carcinoma. This is true in experimental models of these diseases. For this reason, we investigated the TLR proinflammatory response in the chronic intragastric tube feeding rat model of alcohol liver disease. The methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine was also fed to prevent the gene expression changes induced by ethanol. Ethanol feeding tended to increase the up regulation of the gene expression of TLR2 and TLR4. SAMe feeding prevented this. TLR4 and MyD88 protein levels were significantly increased by ethanol and this was prevented by SAMe. This is the first report where ethanol feeding induced TLR2 and SAMe prevented the induction by ethanol. CD34, FOS, interferon responsive factor 1 (IRF-1), Jun, TLR 1,2,3,4,6 and 7 and Traf-6 were found to be up regulated as seen by microarray analysis where rats were sacrificed at high blood alcohol levels compared to pair fed controls. Il-6, IL-10 and IFNγ were also up regulated by high blood levels of ethanol. The gene expression of CD14, MyD88 and TNFR1SF1 were not up regulated by ethanol but were down regulated by SAMe. The gene expression of IL-1R1 and IRF1 tended to be up regulated by ethanol and this was prevented by feeding SAMe. The results suggest that SAMe, fed chronically prevents the activation of TLR pathways caused by ethanol. In this way the proinflammatory response, fibrogenesis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma formation due to alcohol liver disease could be prevented by SAMe.     

S-腺苷甲硫氨酸抑制大肠癌细胞生长的实验研究

目的探讨S-腺苷甲硫氨酸(SAM)对人大肠癌细胞生长的抑制作用及抑癌机制。方法用SAM对大肠癌细胞系HT-29进行处理,使其癌基因c-myc和H-ras启动子区域甲基化。用噻唑蓝(MTT)法检测肿瘤细胞生长状态;甲基化特异性聚合酶链反应(PCR)(MSP)法检测c-myc和H-ras启动子区域甲基化状态;细胞免疫荧光染色检测C-MYC和H-RAS蛋白的表达情况。结果大肠癌细胞系HT-29经SAM处理后,癌基因c-myc和H-ras启动子区域重新出现甲基化。经SAM处理的大肠癌细胞组与对照组相比,细胞生长受到明显抑制,差异有统计学意义(P<0.05);C-MYC和H-RAS蛋白表达明显降低,差异有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论 SAM能使HT-29中癌基因c-myc和H-ras启动子区域重新甲基化,降低C-MYC和H-RAS蛋白的表达水平,且有效抑制了肿瘤细胞的生长,从而为肿瘤治疗提供了新的靶点。