Distinct roles of FOXA2 and FOXA3 in allergic airway disease
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ABSTRACT: Allergen challenge induced mucus metaplasia modify the expression of two transcription factors belonging to the FOXA family: FOXA2 and FOXA3. Foxa2 expression is decreased during allergic airway disease whereas, Foxa3 expression is increased by allergen. Therefore, we asked whether persistent expression of Foxa2 prevents mucus and whether absence of Foxa3 affects mucus or other features asociated with allergic airway disease. We analyzed the effects of these changes in FOXA transcription factor expression using Foxa2 transgenic mice and Foxa3-/- mice. We found that persistent expression of FOXA2 reduced mucus but the absence of FOXA3 had no effect on mucus production induced by allergen challenge. However, the absence of FOXA3 decreased airway hyperreactivity and increased IgE production and eosinophilic inflammation but none of these features were affected by persistent expression of FOXA2. These results indicate that FOXA3 has functions distinct from those of FOXA2 in the allergic response. Keywords: gene expression comparison between Foxa3-/- and littermate control mice both challenged with OVA DNA miocroarrays were used to analyze lung mRNA expression of Foxa3 KO and littermate control mice challenged with saline or OVA. The experiment incorporated a 1 color design and used Agilent arrays that contained roughly 44,000 60mer probes that provide complete coverage of the mouse genome. 11 arrays were hybridized and represent 3 lung samples for groups WT saline, WT OVA and KO OVA. There are 2 lung samples for the KO saline group.
Project description:Allergen challenge induced mucus metaplasia modify the expression of two transcription factors belonging to the FOXA family: FOXA2 and FOXA3. Foxa2 expression is decreased during allergic airway disease whereas, Foxa3 expression is increased by allergen. Therefore, we asked whether persistent expression of Foxa2 prevents mucus and whether absence of Foxa3 affects mucus or other features asociated with allergic airway disease. We analyzed the effects of these changes in FOXA transcription factor expression using Foxa2 transgenic mice and Foxa3-/- mice. We found that persistent expression of FOXA2 reduced mucus but the absence of FOXA3 had no effect on mucus production induced by allergen challenge. However, the absence of FOXA3 decreased airway hyperreactivity and increased IgE production and eosinophilic inflammation but none of these features were affected by persistent expression of FOXA2. These results indicate that FOXA3 has functions distinct from those of FOXA2 in the allergic response. Keywords: gene expression comparison between Foxa3-/- and littermate control mice both challenged with OVA
Project description:Background: Inhalation exposure to biological particulate matter (BioPM) from livestock farms may provoke exacerbations in subjects suffering from allergy and asthma. The aim of this study was to use a murine model of allergic asthma to determine the effect of BioPM derived from goat farm on airway allergic responses Methods: Fine (< 2.5 μm) BioPM was collected from an indoor goat stable. Female BALB/c mice were ovalbumin (OVA) sensitized and challenged with OVA or saline as control. The OVA and saline groups were divided in sub-groups and exposed intranasally to different concentrations (0, 0.9, 3, or 9 μg) of goat farm BioPM. Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), blood and lung tissues were collected. Results: In saline-challenged mice, goat farm BioPM alone induced a dose-dependent increase in neutrophils in BALF and induced production of macrophage inflammatory protein-3a). In OVA-challenged mice, BioPM significantly enhanced 1) inflammatory cells in BALF, 2) OVA-specific Immunoglobulin (Ig)G1, 3) interleukin-23 production, 4) airway mucus secretion-specific gene expression. RNAseq analysis of lungs indicates that neutrophil chemotaxis and oxidation-reduction processes were the representative genomic pathways in saline and OVA-challenged mice, respectively. Conclusions: A single exposure to goat farm BioPM enhanced airway inflammation in both saline and OVA-challenged allergic mice, with neutrophilic response as Th17 disorder and eosinophilic response as Th2 disorder indicative of the severity of allergic responses. Identification of the mode of action by which farm PM interacts with airway allergic pathways will be useful to design potential therapeutic approaches.
Project description:We examined how allergic inflammation in early postnatal period influences microglia using a short- and long-term airway allergy model. Male mice (C57BL/6) were immunized by intraperitoneal injection with aluminum hydroxide and ovalbumin (OVA) or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) (control) at postnatal days (P) 3, 7, and 11, followed by intranasal challenge with OVA or PBS solution twice a week until P30 or P70. Microglia from whole brain were isolated from PBS- and OVA-treated mice by gating on CD11b+CD45int cells with flowcytometry at P30 and P70 respectively. Results suggest the dysregulation of microglial genes related to synaptic pruning and clearance, aging, and corticosteroid pathway and distinction between short- and long- term allergen challenge.
Project description:Allergen exposure was thought to play a critical role in the etiology of AR. And allergen avoidance, the practice of avoiding exposure to allergens, has been generally advised as the management of AR. However, the effect is uncertain and the underlying mechanism is far from known. We used gene expression microarrays to identify genes differentially regulated by allergen avoidance in allergic rhinitis mouse model. Affymetrix Mouse Gene 1.0 ST arrays were used to identify the expression profiling of nasal mucosa in three groups of mice: (1) mice sensitized and challenged with saline (control group); (2) mice sensitized and challenged with ovalbumin (OVA) and sacrificed 2 hours after the last challenge (OVA group); (3) mice sensitized and challenged with OVA and sacrificed 4 weeks after the last challenge (4w-after group).
Project description:Atopic asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs that is commonly associated with a Th2 response. The role of allergen-specific IgG in the initiation and development of allergic airway inflammation is still poorly understood; however, a receptor of IgG-immune complexes, CD16, has been demonstrated to promote augmentation of Th2 responses. To identify what genes downstream of CD16 signaling may be contributing to development of a Th2 response, we use ovalbumin (OVA) as our model antigen and compared wildtype and CD16-/- BMDCs that were treated overnight with OVA or OVA-immune complex. C57Bl/6 and CD16-/- BMDCs were treated for 24 hours with OVA or OVA-immune complex and then analyzed for gene expression changes.
Project description:Using a human model of asthma exacerbation, we compared the airway mucosa in allergic asthmatics and allergic non-asthmatic controls using single-cell RNA-sequencing frameworks. In response to allergen challenge, the airway epithelium in asthmatics was highly dynamic and upregulated genes involved in matrix degradation, mucus metaplasia, and glycolysis while failing to induce injury-repair and antioxidant pathways observed in controls. Asthmatics also had a unique mucosal immune profile, characterized by IL9-expressing pathogenic TH2 cells and enrichment of DC2 (CD1C) and CCR2-expressing monocyte-derived cells (MC) after allergen, with upregulation of genes that promote pathologic airway remodeling. In contrast, controls were enriched for macrophage-like MC that upregulated tissue repair programs after allergen challenge, suggesting these populations may protect against asthmatic airway remodeling. These findings reveal a novel TH2-mononuclear phagocyte-epithelial interactome unique to asthmatics, suggesting that pathogenic effector circuits and the absence of pro-resolution programs drive structural airway disease in response to type 2 inflammation.
Project description:Studying the proteomes of tissue-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) can lead to the identifica-tion of biomarkers of disease and can provide a better understanding of cell-to-cell communica-tion in both healthy and diseased tissue. The aim of this study was to apply our previously es-tablished tissue-derived EV isolation protocol to mouse lungs in order to determine the changes in the proteomes of lung tissue-derived EVs during allergen-induced eosinophilic airway in-flammation. A mouse model for allergic airway inflammation was used by sensitizing the mice intraperitoneal with ovalbumin (OVA), and one week after the final sensitization, the mice were challenged intranasal with OVA or PBS. The animals were sacrificed 24 h after the final chal-lenge, and their lungs were removed and sliced into smaller pieces that were incubated in cul-ture media with DNase I and Collagenase D for 30 min at 37 °C. Vesicles were isolated from the medium by ultracentrifugation and bottom-loaded iodixanol density cushions, and the proteo-mes were determined using quantitative mass spectrometry. More EVs were present in the lungs of the OVA-challenged mice compared to the PBS-challenged control mice. In total, 4510 proteins were quantified in all samples. Among them, over 1000 proteins were significantly altered (fold change >2), with 614 proteins being increased and 425 proteins being decreased in the EVs from OVA-challenged mice compared to EVs from PBS-challenged animals. The associated cellular components and biological processes were analyzed for the altered EV proteins, and the proteins enriched during allergen-induced airway inflammation were mainly associated with gene on-tology (GO) terms related to immune responses. In conclusion, EVs can be isolated from mouse lung tissue, and the EVs’ proteomes undergo changes in response to allergen-induced airway in-flammation. This suggests that the composition of lung-derived EVs is altered in diseases asso-ciated with inflammation of the lung, which may have implications in type-2 driven eosino-philic asthma pathogenesis.
Project description:Expression microarrays identified 119 genes that were significantly differentially expressed in the epithelium of WT and M-NM-26 KO mice after saline or chronic allergen challenge. PAM clustering revealed two interesting clusters (6 and 8) that we had not identified in previous comparisons by whole lung microarrays. Cluster 6 genes were low at baseline in both WT and M-NM-26 KO mice and were increased in WT but not in M-NM-26 KO mice after chronic allergen challenge such as Mcpt1. Cluster 8 genes were increased at baseline in M-NM-26 KO mice, and included 6 mast cell related genes (cma1, mcpt4, cpa3, mcpt6, tpsab1, il1rl1). The most informative differentially expressed genes identified in microarrays of the epithelial microenvironment were not epithelial genes, but mast cell genes. Control and beta6 ko mice (wt-S (4), wt-OVA (4), ko-S (4), ko-OVA (4)) were sensitized and challenged with OVA or saline, airway epithelium were brush-harvested.
Project description:Atopic asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs that is commonly associated with a Th2 response. The role of allergen-specific IgG in the initiation and development of allergic airway inflammation is still poorly understood; however, a receptor of IgG-immune complexes, CD16, has been demonstrated to promote augmentation of Th2 responses. To identify what genes downstream of CD16 signaling may be contributing to development of a Th2 response, we use ovalbumin (OVA) as our model antigen and compared wildtype and CD16-/- BMDCs that were treated overnight with OVA or OVA-immune complex.