Abstract
Autism comprises a broad range of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by social communication deficits and repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. Chemokine receptor CXCR2 is expressed on neurons and is upregulated in neurological disorders. BTBR T+ Itpr3tf/J (BTBR) mice, a model for autism that shows the core features of ASD. Here, we studied the anti-inflammatory effect of a potent and selective CXCR2 antagonist SB332235 in the BTBR mice. The CXCR2 antagonist represents a promising therapeutic agent for several neuroinflammatory disorders. In this study, we investigated the effects of SB332235 administration on NF-kappa B-, Notch-1-, Notch-3-, GM-CSF-, MCP-1-, IL-6-, and IL -2-and TGF-beta 1-expressing CD40+ cells in BTBR and C57BL/6 (C57) mice in the spleen cells by flow cytometry. We further assessed the effect of SB332235 treatment on NF-kappa B, Notch-1, GM-CSF, MCP-1, IL-6, and IL-2 mRNA expression levels in the brain tissue by RT-PCR. We also explored the effect of SB332235 administration on NF-kappa B, GM-CSF, IL-6, and TGF-beta 1 protein expression levels in the brain tissue by western blotting. The SB332235-treated BTBR mice significantly decreases in CD40 + NF-kappa B+, CD40 + Notch -1+, CD40 + Notch-3+, CD40 + GM-CSF+, CD40 + MCP-1+, CD40 + IL-6+, and CD40 + IL-2+, and increases in CD40 + TGF-beta 1+ in the spleen cells. Our results further demonstrated that BTBR mice treated with SB332235 effectively decreased NF-kappa B, Notch-1, GM-CSF, MCP-1, IL-6, and IL-2, increasing TGF-beta 1 mRNA and protein expression levels in the brain tissue. In conclusion, these results indicate that SB332235 elicits an anti-inflammatory response by downregulating the inflammatory mediators and NF-kappa B/Notch inflammatory signaling in BTBR mice. This could represent a promising novel therapeutic target for autism treatment.