Objective To investigate the expression of aquaporin-1( AQP-1) in pulmonary tissues of asthma mice and the effects of acetazolamide( AZ) on AQP-1 expression. Methods Forty C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into five groups. Group A was treated with phosphate buffer as a non-asthmatic group.The mice in group B, C, D, and E were sensitized with ovalbumin( OVA) and challenged with aerosol OVA to establish asthma model. The mice in group B, C, and D were interperitoneally injected with AZ at doses of 300, 200, 100 mg/kg, respectively during the challenge period. Results ①Wet/dry weight ratio of lung tissues in group E was significantly higher than that in group A( P lt;0. 05) , while it was lower in B, C and D groups than group E. ②The total number of cells, the number of eosinophils, and interleukin-5( IL-5) inBALF of group E were higher than those in group A( P lt;0. 05) , and interferon-γ( IFN-γ) level was lower in group E than in group A ( P lt; 0. 05) . After AZ treatment, the total number of cells, the number of eosinophils, neutrophils and lymphocytes were significantly decreased( P lt; 0. 05) , which were positively correlated with the dose of AZ. ③AQP-1 were expressed in tracheal epithelium, microvascular endothelial cell and bronchial peripheral vascular bed, and the expression in group E was significantly higher than that in group A( P lt;0. 01) . AQP-1 expression was significantly decreased after the intervention of AZ ( P lt;0. 05) .The decrease was positively correlated with the dose of AZ. The expression of AQP-1 mRNA showed no significant difference among these groups( P gt;0. 05) . Conclusions AQP-1 was over-expressed in the lung tissue of mice with asthma. AZ can inhibit the expression of AQP-1 and relieve lung inflammatory cells infiltrationin a dose-dependent manner. It is the protein expression of AQP-1 not the AQP-1 mRNA which were significantly different in different groups, suggesting that AZ affected AQP-1 in the post-transcriptional stage.
Objective To analyze the characteristics of intestinal flora in patients with allergic asthma, so as to provide a theoretical basis for the development of new clinical treatment methods. Methods Fecal samples were collected from 14 patients with allergic asthma and 15 healthy people between January 2021 and December 2021, and 16S rRNA was used to analyze the composition and diversity of intestinal flora of the participants. Results There was no statistically significant difference in age, gender, BMI, or smoking history between the allergic asthma group and the control group (all P>0.05). Alpha diversity results showed that there was significant difference in the abundance of intestinal flora between the two groups, but there was no significant difference in the diversity of intestinal flora between the two groups. The results of β diversity analysis indicated that there were significant differences in the composition of bacterial flora between the allergic asthma group and the control group. The difference bacteria between the two groups at the genus level are Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, Alistipes, Sphingomonas, Dorea, Ruminococcaceae_UCG-002, Streptomyces, [Eubacterium]_venturiosum_group, Butyriococcus and Agathobacter. Conclusion Compared with healthy individuals, patients with allergic asthma have undergone significant changes in the composition of their gut microbiota, with various differential bacteria present. Among them, Roseburia and Eubacterium may be involved in the pathogenesis of allergic asthma through changes in short chain fatty acids.