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Selenium Alleviates Inflammation in Staphylococcus aureus-Induced Mastitis via MerTK-Dependent Activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR Pathway in Mice

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Abstract

Mastitis caused by Staphylococcus aureus infection not only causes serious economic losses, but also affects human health. Se plays an important role in body immunity. However, the mechanisms by which Se regulates mastitis induced by S. aureus are still principally unknown. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Se can inhibit mastitis induced by S. aureus through regulation of MerTK. Sixty BALB/c female mice were fed low, normal, or high Se concentrations for 7 weeks and then randomly divided into six groups (Se-Low Control group (LSN), Se-Normal Control group (NSN), Se-High Control group (HSN), Se-Low S. aureus group (LSS), Se-Normal S. aureus group (NSS), Se-High S. aureus group (HSS)). The regulation of Se on MerTK was detected via histopathological staining, western blot analysis, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and qRT-PCR. With increased selenium concentrations, the levels of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α decreased, while the phosphorylation levels of MerTK, PI3K, AKT, and mTOR increased. Therefore, this study showed that Se could alleviate S. aureus mastitis by activating MerTK and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway.

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Data Availability

The data of this study will be made available on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Key Research and Development Plan (No. 2016YFD0500906) and the special fund for the China Agriculture Research System (Beef/Yak cattle) (No. CARS-37), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31101874, 31972758), Key R & D program of Hubei province of China (No. 2020BBA055), and the Research Fund for National Distinguished Scholars in Agriculture Research and Technical Innovative Team, the Provincial Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for Undergraduate (No. S202010504023).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Si-jie Chen, Chen-yuan Zhang, Di Yu, Chang-jie Lin, Hao-jun Xu & Chang-min Hu

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  1. Si-jie Chen
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  2. Chen-yuan Zhang
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  3. Di Yu
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  4. Chang-jie Lin
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Contributions

S. C., and C. Z. conceived and designed the experiments. S. C., C. Z., D. Y., C. L., and H. X. carried out the experiments. S. C., and C. Z. processed the data. S. C., C. Z., and C. H. wrote the paper. The final manuscript was read and approved by all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chang-min Hu.

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All the animal experiments involved in this paper have been approved by the Animal Research Ethics Committee of Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAUMO-2021–0016).

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Chen, Sj., Zhang, Cy., Yu, D. et al. Selenium Alleviates Inflammation in Staphylococcus aureus-Induced Mastitis via MerTK-Dependent Activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR Pathway in Mice. Biol Trace Elem Res 200, 1750–1762 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-021-02794-z

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