Project description:Direct conversion of cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) to cardiomyocytes (CMs) in vivo to regenerate heart tissue is an attractive approach. After myocardial infarction (MI), heart repair proceeds with an inflammation stage initiated by monocytes infiltration of the infarct zone establishing an immune microenvironment. However, whether and how the MI microenvironment influences the reprogramming of CFs remains unclear. Here, we found that in comparison with cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) cultured in vitro, CFs that transplanted into infarct region of MI mouse models resisted to cardiac reprogramming. RNA-seq analysis revealed upregulation of interferon (IFN) response genes in transplanted CFs, and subsequent inhibition of the IFN receptors increased reprogramming efficiency in vivo. Macrophage-secreted IFN-β was identified as the dominant upstream signaling factor after MI. CFs treated with macrophage-conditioned medium containing IFN-β displayed reduced reprogramming efficiency, while macrophage depletion or blocking the IFN signaling pathway after MI increased reprogramming efficiency in vivo. Co-IP, BiFC and Cut-tag assays showed that phosphorylated STAT1 downstream of IFN signaling in CFs could interact with the reprogramming factor GATA4 and inhibit the GATA4 chromatin occupancy in cardiac genes. Furthermore, upregulation of IFN-IFNAR-pSTAT1 signaling could stimulate CFs secretion of CCL2/7/12 chemokines, subsequently recruiting IFN-β-secreting macrophages. Together, these immune cells further activate STAT1 phosphorylation, enhancing CCL2/7/12 secretion and immune cell recruitment, ultimately forming a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop between CFs and macrophages via IFN-IFNAR-pSTAT1 that inhibits cardiac reprogramming in vivo. Cumulatively, our findings uncover an intercellular self-stimulating inflammatory circuit as a microenvironmental molecular barrier of in situ cardiac reprogramming that needs to be overcome for regenerative medicine applications.

Project description:Ischemia, fibrosis, and remodeling lead to heart failure after severe myocardial infarction (MI). Myoblast sheet transplantation is a promising therapy to enhance cardiac function and induce therapeutic angiogenesis via a paracrine mechanism in this detrimental disease. We hypothesized that in a rat model of MI-induced chronic heart failure this therapy could further be improved by overexpression of the antiapoptotic, antifibrotic, and proangiogenic hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) in the myoblast sheets. We studied the ability of wild type (L6-WT) and human HGF-expressing (L6-HGF) L6 myoblast sheet-derived paracrine factors to stimulate cardiomyocyte, endothelial cell, or smooth muscle cell migration in culture. Further, we studied the autocrine effect of hHGF-expression on myoblast gene expression using microarray analysis. We induced MI in Wistar rats by left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) ligation and allowed heart failure to develop for four weeks. Thereafter, we administered L6-WT (n=15) or L6-HGF (n=16) myoblast sheet therapy. Control rats (n=13) underwent LAD ligation and rethoracotomy without therapy and five rats underwent sham-operation in both surgeries. We evaluated cardiac function with echocardiography at 2 and 4 weeks after therapy administration. We analyzed cardiac angiogenesis and left ventricular architecture from histological sections 4 weeks after therapy. Paracrine mediators from L6-HGF myoblast sheets effectively induced migration of cardiac endothelial and smooth muscle cells but not cardiomyocytes. Microarray data revealed that hHGF-expression modulated myoblast gene expression. In vivo, L6-HGF sheet therapy effectively stimulated angiogenesis in the infarcted and non-infarcted areas. Both L6-WT and L6-HGF therapies enhanced cardiac function and inhibited remodeling in a similar fashion. In conclusion, L6-HGF therapy effectively induced angiogenesis in the chronically failing heart. Cardiac function, however, was not further enhanced by hHGF-expression. Analysis of the L6 rat skeletal myoblast cell line and myoblast cell sheets with constitutive human HGF expression.

Dataset Information

IRF3 and type I interferons fuel a fatal response to myocardial infarction [single cell RNA-Seq]

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure