Bibliometric Analysis of the Inflammasome and Pyroptosis in Brain.

Yuhua Chen,Ximin Hu,Yan Li,Cuicui Chang,Kun Xiong,Wenjuan Zhao,Wei Liu,Limin Guo,Jun Hong

doi:10.3389/fphar.2020.626502

Abstract

Background: Considering the pivotal role of inflammasome/pyroptosis in biological function, we visually analyzed the research hotspots of inflammasome/pyroptosis related to the brain in this work through the method of bibliometrics from the Web of Science (WOS) Core database over the past two decades. Methods: Documents were retrieved from WOS Core Collection on October 16, 2020. The search terms and strategies used for the WOS database are as follow: # 1, “pyroptosis”; # 2, “pyroptotic”; # 3, “inflammasome”; # 4, “pyroptosome”; # 5 “brain”; # 6, “# 1” OR “# 2” OR “# 3” OR “# 4”; # 7, “# 5” AND “# 6”. We selected articles and reviews published in English from 2000 to 2020. Visualization analysis and statistical analysis were performed by VOSviewer 1.6.15 and CiteSpace 5.7. R2. Results: 1,222 documents were selected for analysis. In the approximately 20 years since the pyroptosis was first presented, the publications regarding the inflammasome and pyroptosis in brain were presented since 2005. The number of annual publications increased gradually over a decade, which are involved in this work, and will continue to increase in 2020. The most prolific country was China with 523 documents but the United States was with 16,328 citations. The most influential author was Juan Pablo de Rivero Vaccari with 27 documents who worked at the University of Miami. The bibliometric analysis showed that inflammasome/pyroptosis involved a variety of brain cell types (microglia, astrocyte, neuron, etc.), physiological processes, ER stress, mitochondrial function, oxidative stress, and disease (traumatic brain injuries, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease). Conclusion: The research of inflammasome/pyroptosis in brain will continue to be the hotspot. We recommend investigating the mechanism of mitochondrial molecules involved in the complex crosstalk of pyroptosis and regulated cell deaths (RCDs) in brain glial cells, which will facilitate the development of effective therapeutic strategies targeting inflammasome/pyroptosis and large-scale clinical trials. Thus, this study presents the trend and characteristic of inflammasome/pyroptosis in brain, which provided a helpful bibliometric analysis for researchers to further studies.

Highlights

With the rapid development of cell biology and molecular biology in recent decades, the mystery of cell death has been gradually revealed by scholars, which is implicated in various human diseases
The data showed that the publications of inflammasome/pyroptosis and its role in brain were of sustained growth
It suggests that inflammasome/pyroptosis attracted more and more attention all over the world, which indicates that inflammasome/pyroptosis in brain will be a continuing hotspot in the future

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid development of cell biology and molecular biology in recent decades, the mystery of cell death has been gradually revealed by scholars, which is implicated in various human diseases. ACD is an instantaneous, catastrophic, and uncontrolled biological process, whereas RCD is molecularly defined and finely regulated (Galluzzi et al, 2018; Tang et al, 2019). Since apoptosis was defined by John Kerr, Andrew Wyllie, and Alastair Currie in 1972 (Kerr et al, 1972), about a dozen types of RCD have been identified in succession (Tang et al, 2019), ranging from noninflammatory (e.g., apoptosis and ferroptosis) to highly proinflammatory (e.g., pyroptosis and necroptosis) cell death (Kolb et al, 2017; Galluzzi et al, 2018; Wang et al, 2020b). Considering the pivotal role of inflammasome/pyroptosis in biological function, we visually analyzed the research hotspots of inflammasome/pyroptosis related to the brain in this work through the method of bibliometrics from the Web of Science (WOS) Core database over the past two decades

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion