Title:Secondary White Matter Injury Mediated by Neuroinflammation after
Intracerebral Hemorrhage and Promising Therapeutic Strategies of
Targeting the NLRP3 Inflammasome
Volume: 21
Issue: 3
Author(s): Linglong Xiao, Mengqi Wang, Yifeng Shi, Yangyang Xu, Yuan Gao, Wei Zhang, Yang Wu, Hao Deng, Wei Pan, Wei Wang*Haitao Sun*
Affiliation:
- Department of Neurosurgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, 37 Guoxue Alley, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan
Province, China
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Clinical Biobank Center, Microbiome Medicine Center,
Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510280, China
- Neurosurgery Center, The National Key
Clinical Specialty, The Engineering Technology Research Center of Education Ministry of China on Diagnosis and
Treatment of Cerebrovascular Disease, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory on Brain Function Repair and Regeneration,
The Neurosurgery Institute of Guangdong Province, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou
510282, China
Keywords:
Intracerebral hemorrhage, secondary white matter injury, neuroinflammation, NLRP3 inflammasome, microglia, astrocyte.
Abstract: Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a neurological disease with high mortality and disability.
Recent studies showed that white matter injury (WMI) plays an important role in motor dysfunction
after ICH. WMI includes WMI proximal to the lesion and WMI distal to the lesion, such as corticospinal
tract injury located at the cervical enlargement of the spinal cord after ICH. Previous studies
have tended to focus only on gray matter (GM) injury after ICH, and fewer studies have paid attention
to WMI, which may be one of the reasons for the poor outcome of previous drug treatments. Microglia
and astrocyte-mediated neuroinflammation are significant mechanisms responsible for secondary
WMI following ICH. The NOD-like receptor family, pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome
activation, has been shown to exacerbate neuroinflammation and brain injury after ICH.
Moreover, NLRP3 inflammasome is activated in microglia and astrocytes and exerts a vital role in microglia
and astrocytes-mediated neuroinflammation. We speculate that NLRP3 inflammasome activation
is closely related to the polarization of microglia and astrocytes and that NLRP3 inflammasome
activation may exacerbate WMI by polarizing microglia and astrocytes to the pro-inflammatory phenotype
after ICH, while NLRP3 inflammasome inhibition may attenuate WMI by polarizing microglia
and astrocytes to the anti-inflammatory phenotype following ICH. Therefore, NLRP3 inflammasome
may act as leveraged regulatory fulcrums for microglia and astrocytes polarization to modulate WMI
and WM repair after ICH. This review summarized the possible mechanisms by which neuroinflammation
mediated by NLRP3 inflammasome exacerbates secondary WMI after ICH and discussed the
potential therapeutic targets.