Nervonic acid alleviates stroke and its associated poststroke depression behaviors

Nervonic acid(NA)is an important long-chain monounsaturated fatty acid found in mammalian nervous tissue.It has recently garnered research attention due to its therapeutic potential in treating psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.In this study,we investigated the efficacy of NA in treating ischemia/reperfusion and poststroke events in a rat model.Specifically,there was significant reduction in the infarct area,cell death,and neuronal swelling after NA treatment,and the improvement in cerebral blood flow was also observed on day five after middle cerebral artery occlusion.Moreover,NA treatment led to the upregulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factors and myelin basic protein genes.NA displayed improved effects on depressive-like behavior of rats by three validated assays—the sucrose preference test,open-field test,and forced swim test.Regarding the mechanism of action,direct supplementation of NA in the brain was observed.We also observed the indirect effects of NA on the gut microbiota.Notably,the NA group gradually restored the bacterial diversity and the EGb group exhibited no impact based on observed-out analysis.We found an increase in the abundance of Blautia and Sutterella,which participated in phenylalanine metabolism.The metabolomics of plasma and brain samples revealed a decrease in the levels of phenylalanine-based amino acids,which alleviated the inhibitory effects on glutamine metabolism and promoted the recovery and signaling transmission of neurons after stroke.Altogether,our findings suggest that NA can be a viable treatment option for alleviating stroke and its associated poststroke depressive-like behaviors.

Maternal and neonatal viromes indicate the risk of offspring's gastrointestinal tract exposure to pathogenic viruses of vaginal origin during delivery

A cumulative effect of enterovirus and gluten intake on the risk of celiac disease autoimmunity in infants highlights the significance of viral exposure in early life on the health of children.However,pathogenic viruses may be transmitted to the offspring in an earlier period,raising the possibility that women whose vaginas are inhabited by such viruses may have had their babies infected as early as the time of delivery.A high‐resolution intergenerational virome atlas was obtained by metagenomic sequencing and virome analysis on 486 samples from six body sites of 99 mother–neonate pairs.We found that neonates had less diverse oral and enteric viruses than mothers.Vaginally delivered newborns seconds after birth had a more similar oral virome and more viruses of vaginal origin than cesarean‐section(C‐section)newborns(56.9%vs.5.8%).Such viruses include both Lactobacillus phage and potentially pathogenic viruses,such as herpesvirus,vaccinia virus,and hepacivirus,illustrating a relatively high variety of the pioneer viral taxa at the time of delivery and a delivery‐dependent mother‐to‐neonate transmission along the vaginal–oral–intestinal route.Neonates are exposed to vaginal viruses as they pass through the reproductive tract,and viruses of vaginal origin may threaten their health.These findings challenge the conventional notion that vaginal delivery is definitely better than cesarean delivery from the perspective of microbial transmission.Screening for vaginal virome before delivery is a worthwhile step to advocate in normal labor to eliminate the risk of intergenerational transmission of pathogenic viruses to offspring.