Abstract
Post-stroke depression (PSD) is a kind of prevalent emotional disorder following stroke that usually results in slow functional recovery and even increased mortality. We had reported that the cysteinyl leukotriene receptor 2 (CysLT2R) antagonist HAMI3379 (HM3379) contributes to the improvement of neurological injury. The present study was designed to investigate the role of HM3379 in PSD-induced chronic neuroinflammation and related mechanisms in gerbils. The gerbils were subjected to transient global cerebral ischemia (tGCI) and spatial restraint stress to induce the PSD model. They were randomized to receive the vehicle or HM3379 (0.1 mg/kg, i.p.) for a consecutive 14 days. In the PSD-treated gerbils, HM3379 had noteworthy efficacy in improving the modified neurological severity score (mNSS) and depression-like behaviors, including the sucrose preference test and the forced swim test. HM3379 administration significantly mitigated neuron loss, lessened TUNEL-positive neurons, and reduced the activation of microglia in the cerebral cortex. Importantly, HM3379 downregulated protein expressions of the NOD-like receptor pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome and pyroptosis including NLRP3, cleaved caspase-1, interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-18, cleaved gasdermin-N domain (GSDMD-N), and apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase activation and recruitment domain (ASC). Mechanistically, HM3379 could repress pyroptosis via inhibiting NLRP3 inflammasome activation under oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) stimulation. Knockdown of CysLT2R by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) or overexpression of CysLT2R by lentivirus (LV)-CysLT2R could abolish or restore the anti-depression effect of HM3379. Our results demonstrated that the selective CysLT2R antagonist HM3379 has beneficial effects on PSD, partially by suppressing the NLRP3 inflammasome/pyroptosis pathway.