Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 30, Issue 31, 2024

This study aimed to review and summarize the current literature on the effects of nicotine and cannabinoids on cytokines, including interleukins, TNF, IFN, and TGF-β.

Literature search was conducted on Medline/PubMed electronic databases utilizing the search terms “nicotine” OR “cannabis” OR “cannabinoids” AND “cytokine” AND “inflammation” AND “stress” AND “immune” from 11/1973 to 02/2024.

THC and CBD usage have been associated with conflicting impacts on immune response, and 
observed to both exacerbate and inhibit inflammation. Nicotine has been shown to be generally pro-inflammatory with regards to cytokines. These responses have been reported to have significant effects on bodily response to inflammation-related diseases. Nicotine usage is associated with worsened outcomes for some conditions, like chronic pain, but improved outcomes for others, like arthritis. The impacts of cannabinoid usage tend to be more positive, exerting anti-inflammatory effects across a wide range of diseases. Given the widespread usage of these substances, it is important to understand the nature of their consequences on immune functions and the underlying mechanisms by which they act.

This review has covered how cannabinoids and nicotine affect inflammation directly and how these effects can be attributed to the treatment of inflammatory diseases. In summary, the existing research studying the effects of cannabinoids and nicotine supports the major relationship between nicotine and cannabis use and inflammatory diseases.

Diabetic nephropathy is one of the main causes of kidney failure in the end stage of diabetes worldwide. On the other hand, asafoetida is a gum whose hypoglycemic effects have been proven. The present study was conducted with the aim of using asafoetida to prevent diabetic nephropathy.

Diabetes was induced by a high-fat diet (60%) and streptozotocin injection (35 mg/kg) in rats. Diabetic rats were treated with an oral dose of 50 mg/kg of asafoetida for 8 weeks. At the end of the experiment, serum and urine parameters were examined. Antioxidant enzymes and lipid peroxidation levels in the kidney were also determined along with its histological examination. The expression levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and Transforming growth factor beta genes were also evaluated.

Glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride, and HbA1c concentrations were significantly reduced in the asafoetida 50. On the other hand, in the treatment group, serum creatinine, urea, and albumin levels decreased and increased in urine. Antioxidant enzymes in the kidney improved significantly, and the expression of tumour necrosis factor-alpha and transforming growth factor-beta genes decreased. Histopathological examination also showed that necrosis, epithelial damage, and leukocyte infiltration increased in the diabetic and decreased in the treatment group.

The result of biochemical analysis, enzymatic, and histological examinations showed that asafoetida may delay the progression of diabetic nephropathy due to the presence of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities.

Cancer is an individual disease and its formation and development are specific to each host. Conventional treatments are ineffective in complex cases, such as metastasis, and have severe adverse side effects. New strategies are needed to address the problem, and the use of immunogenic cell death (ICD) as a trigger or booster of the immune system through the exposure of damage-associated molecular patterns, along with tumor antigens, by cancerous cells is presented as an immunization approach in this work.

For this purpose, 4T1 cells were exposed to doxorubicin (DOX) for 24 hours and then, these cells undergoing ICD were subcutaneously administered to mice. The ICD induction by DOX on 4T1 was assessed by flow cytometry and image analysis. This immunization process was performed three times and after the last administration, the immunized mice were challenged with a subcutaneous xenograft of live cancer cells.

The results demonstrate that the mice immunized with cells undergoing ICD after exposure to DOX presented no primary tumor or indications of distant metastatic lesion development.

In summary, our findings indicate that the immunization process utilizing ICD is indeed efficacious in managing this aggressive form of pre-clinical breast cancer.