Ischemic stroke is an
inflammation-related disease, during which process activation of NLRP3
inflammasome and subsequent pyroptosis play crucial roles.
Platelet-activating factor (PAF) is a potent
phospholipid regulator of
inflammation which exerts its effect via binding specific PAF receptor (PAFR). However, whether PAFR contributes to pyroptosis during
ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury remains to be elucidated. To explore the underlying effect of PAFR on
ischemic stroke from the perspective of pyroptosis, mice were subjected to
middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion (MCAO/R) injury and primary cultures of mice cerebral cortical neurons were exposed to
oxygen-
glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) injury to mimic I/R in vivo and in vitro, after which indexes associated with pyroptosis were analyzed. Intriguingly, our results indicated that inhibition of PAFR with its inhibitor XQ-1H or PAFR
siRNA exerted a
neuroprotective effect against I/R injury both in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore,
inflammasome activation and pyroptosis after ischemic challenge were attenuated by XQ-1H or PAFR
siRNA. Besides, the protection of XQ-1H was abolished by PAF stimulaiton to some extent. Moreover, XQ-1H or PAFR
siRNA alleviated the neuronal pyroptosis induced by LPS and
nigericin (an NLRP3 activator) in cortical neurons. Taken together, this study firstly demonstrates that PAFR is involved in neuronal pyroptosis after I/R injury, and XQ-1H, a specific PAFR inhibitor, has a promising prospect in attenuating I/R injury from the perspective of anti-pyroptosis.