Ammonia inhalation-mediated mir-202-5p leads to cardiac autophagy through PTEN/AKT/mTOR pathway

• Published in: Chemosphere (Oxford) Vol. 235; pp. 858 - 866
• Main Authors: Xing, Houjuan, Peng, Muqiao, Li, Zhuo, Chen, Jianqing, Zhang, Hongfu, Teng, Xiaohua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2019
• Subjects: Ammonia; Environmental contaminant; Heart injury; PTEN/AKT/mTOR pathway; Risk assessment; Ammonia; PTEN/AKT/mTOR pathway; Heart injury; Environmental contaminant; Risk assessment
• ISSN: 0045-6535; 1879-1298
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.06.235

Ammonia is a known environmental pollutant around the world. It leads to the deterioration of air quality and has adverse effects on human health. Although previous studies have demonstrated that ammonia caused some health problems to chickens, it is still unclear whether ammonia causes cardiac toxicity. The functional autophagy is very important for cardiac homeostasis. Therefore, the role of autophagy was investigated in the mechanism of chicken heart damage induced by environmental contaminant ammonia in our present study. The results from the oxidative stress index (SOD, GPx, H2O2, and MDA), NO content, iNOS activity, and transmission electron microscopy indicated that excess ammonia induced oxidative stress and autophagy in the chicken heart. The expression results from miR-202-5p and PTEN/AKT/mTOR (PTEN, LC3-I, LC3-II, p-AKT, AKT, Beclin1, Dynein, ATG5, p-mTOR and mTOR) signaling pathway-related genes further confirmed that excess ammonia induced cardiac autophagy. In conclusion, these results demonstrated that excess ammonia can cause cardiac damage and mediate mir-202-5p to regulate autophagy through PTEN/AKT/mTOR pathway in the chicken heart injury. Our findings will provide a new insight for better assessing the toxicity mechanism of environmental pollutants ammonia on the heart. [Display omitted] •Ammonia is a typical and hazardous environmental pollutant.•Excess ammonia induced oxidative stress and autophagy in the chicken heart.•Ammonia-mediated mir-202-5p leads to autophagy by PTEN/AKT/mTOR pathway.•Contaminant ammonia induced cardiac damage in the chicken.•Our findings will provide a new insight for toxicity assessment of ammonia on the heart.