Referenced in: none

Automatically associated channels: Kir6.1

Title: Kir6.1 knockdown aggravates cerebral ischemia/reperfusion-induced neural injury in mice.

Authors: Yin-Feng Dong, Lin-Xiao Wang, Xu Huang, Wen-Jing Cao, Ming Lu, Jian-Hua Ding, Xiu-Lan Sun, Gang Hu

Journal, date & volume: CNS Neurosci Ther, 2013 Aug , 19, 617-24

PubMed link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23663330

Abstract
ATP-sensitive potassium (K-ATP) channels couple energy metabolism with electric activity, which play important roles in brain diseases including stroke. However, the impacts of Kir6.1-containing K-ATP channels that mainly expressed on glia in stroke remain unclear.In this study, we found that expression of Kir6.1 was significantly decreased in the ischemic brain area of C57BL/6J mice after 1-h middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and 24-h reperfusion. Then, we subjected Kir6.1 heterozygote knockout (Kir6.1(+/-) ) mice to cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury and found that Kir6.1(+/-) mice exhibited exacerbated neurological disorder and enlarged infarct size, companied by glial over-activation and blood-brain barrier (BBB) damages. Furthermore, we showed that Kir6.1 knockdown aggravated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and thereby increased the levels of proinflammatory factors tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β (TNF-α and IL-1β) in mouse brain.Our findings reveal that Kir6.1 knockdown exacerbates cerebral I/R-induced brain damages via increasing ER stress and inflammatory response, indicating that Kir6.1-containing K-ATP channels may be a potential therapeutic target for stroke.