Dual roles of fibroblast-epithelial crosstalk in acute and chronic lung injury
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens
PROVIDER: GSE294260 | GEO | 2025/07/03
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and lethal lung disease characterized by excessive fibrotic scar tissue accumulation, compromising lung function. While the precise etiology of IPF remains elusive, emerging evidence suggests that sustained lung epithelial injury is a key driver in the disease's development and progression. This persistent injury, unlike normal wound healing, maintains a pro-fibrotic niche that continually fuels the fibrotic process. Consequently, the question remains whether there is a way to alter this niche signaling, counteract the pro-fibrotic signals, and restore physiological wound healing. By approaching an epithelial-fibroblast coculture model, we investigated in the intercellular communication in chronic and acute injury situations. We identified that epithelial cells and fibroblasts together, create a protective niche signaling preventing further damage in acute injuries. Within epithelial cells, we observed that a switch of the metabolic state towards increased aerobic fatty acid metabolism initiates regenerative processes. While delineating secreted regulators responsible for inducing these positive responses, we identified pentraxin 3 (PTX3) as a top hit harboring antifibrotic characteristics. Modifying the niche by addition of PTX3 on chronically injured epithelial cells causes an amelioration of the pro-fibrotic phenotype and maintained the epithelial barrier integrity. These findings offer valuable insights in key differences of acute and chronic injuries and underscore the importance of understanding the complex interplay between epithelial cells and fibroblasts in lung injury and repair.
2025-03-18 | MSV000097369 | MassIVE
Project description:Fibrosing interstitial lung disease (fILD) is a fatal fibrotic lung disease with limited therapeutic options and no effective therapeutic strategies to reverse pulmonary fibrosis. Here, we found that PTX3 is upregulated in the lungs of bleomycin-treated mice and fILD patients. Lung injury and fibrosis were significantly attenuated in inducible conditional Ptx3-deficient mice in response to bleomycin treatment. Moreover, we dissected mechanistic insights into PTX3/CD44-dependent fibrotic pathways and effectors in lung myofibroblast activation and collagen production. Importantly, αPTX3i disrupts the interaction of PTX3 and CD44 and effectively attenuated bleomycin-treated lung injury and fibrosis in vivo and myofibroblast activation in vitro. Our study provides new insight into the regulation of PTX3 in pulmonary fibrosis and a potential target for developing future novel therapy for fILDs.
2022-08-04 | GSE210165 | GEO
Project description:Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the prototypic progressive fibrotic lung disease with a median survival of 2-4 years. Injury to and/or dysfunction of alveolar epithelium are strongly implicated in IPF disease initiation, but what factors determine why fibrosis progresses rather than normal tissue repair occurs remain poorly understood. We previously demonstrated that ZEB1-mediated epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in human alveolar epithelial type II (ATII) cells augments TGF-β-induced profibrogenic responses in underlying lung fibroblasts by paracrine signalling. Here we investigated bi-directional epithelial-mesenchymal crosstalk and its potential to drive fibrosis progression. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) of lung fibroblasts exposed to conditioned media from ATII cells undergoing RAS-induced EMT identified many differentially expressed genes including those involved in cell migration and extracellular matrix (ECM) regulation. We confirmed that paracrine signalling between AS-activated ATII cells and fibroblasts augmented fibroblast recruitment and demonstrated that this involved a ZEB1-tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) axis. In a reciprocal fashion, paracrine signalling from TGF-β-activated lung fibroblasts or IPF fibroblasts induced RAS activation in ATII cells, at least partially via the secreted protein, SPARC. Together these data identify that aberrant bi-directional epithelial-mesenchymal crosstalk in IPF drives a chronic feedback loop that maintains a wound-healing phenotype and provides self-sustaining pro-fibrotic signals.
2021-08-19 | PXD025821 | Pride
Project description:In an endotoxaemic mouse model of sepsis, a tissue-based proteomics approach for biomarker discovery identified long pentraxin 3 (PTX3) as the lead candidate for inflamed myocardium. PTX3 accumulated as an octamer due to disulphide-bond formation in heart, kidney and lung ?common organ dysfunctions seen in patients with sepsis. Oligomeric moieties of PTX3 were also detectable in the circulation. The redox-state of PTX3 was quantified over the first 11 days in critically ill adult patients with sepsis. On admission day, there was no difference in the redox-state of PTX3 between survivors and non-survivors. From day 2 onwards, the conversion of octameric to monomeric PTX3 was consistently associated with a greater survival after 28 days of follow-up. For example, by day 2 post admission, octameric PTX3 was undetectable in survivors, but still constituted more than half of total PTX3 in non-survivors (P<0.001). Monomeric PTX3 was inversely associated with cardiac damage markers NT-proBNP, high sensitivity troponin I and T. In comparison to the conventional measurements of total PTX3 or NT-proBNP, the redox-sensitive oligomerization of PTX3 was more dynamic and a superior predictor of disease outcome.
2014-07-01 | PXD001020 | Pride
Project description:Fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD) are lung disorders characterized by the accumulation of extracellular matrix, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the pulmonary scaffold. Continuous pro-fibrotic signaling perpetuates the remodeling process, specifically targeting the epithelial cell compartment, thereby destroying the gas exchange area. Studies that address this detrimental crosstalk between lung epithelial cells and fibroblasts are key to understanding ILD. With the aim of identifying functionally relevant targets that drive mesenchymal-epithelial crosstalk and their potential as new avenues to therapeutic strategies, we developed an organoid co-culture system based on human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived alveolar epithelial type 2 cells and lung fibroblasts from ILD patients as well as IMR-90 controls. While organoid formation capacity and organoid size was comparable in the presence of ILD or control lung fibroblasts, metabolic activity was significantly increased in ILD co-cultures. Alveolar organoids cultured with ILD fibroblasts further demonstrated reduced stem cell function supported by reduced Surfactant Protein C gene expression together with an aberrant basaloid-prone differentiation program indicated by elevated Cadherin 2, Bone Morphogenic Protein 4 and Vimentin transcription. In order to identify key mediators of the misguided mesenchymal-to-epithelial crosstalk with a focus on disease-relevant inflammatory processes, we used secretome mass spectrometry to identify key signals secreted by end stage ILD lung fibroblasts. Over 2000 proteins were detected in a single-shot experiment with 47 differentially upregulated proteins when comparing ILD and non-chronic lung disease control fibroblasts. The secretome profile was dominated by chemokines of the C-X-C motif family, including CXCL1, -3, and -8, all interfering with (epithelial) growth factor signaling orchestrated by Interleukin 11 (IL11), steering fibrogenic cell-cell communication, and proteins regulating extracellular matrix remodeling including epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. When in turn treating 3D monocultures of iAT2s with IL11 we recapitulated the co-culture results obtained with primary ILD fibroblasts including changes in metabolic activity as well as organoid formation capacity and size. In summary, our analysis identified mesenchyme-derived mediators likely contributing to the disease-perpetuating mesenchymal-to-epithelial crosstalk in ILD by using sophisticated alveolar organoid co-cultures indicating the importance of cytokine-driven aberrant epithelial differentiation and confirmed IL11 as a key player in ILD using an unbiased approach.
2023-04-19 | PXD039554 | Pride
Project description:PTX3, as the long member of the pentraxin family, is produced mainly by dendritic cells, macrophages, and endothelial cells in response to inflammation. Growing amount of studies suggest that PTX3 can exert potential contradictory roles in inflammation regulation, antimicrobial resistance, and disease pathogenesis, depending on the tissue context, cellular source, and levels of production. To characterize the potential involvement of PTX3 in macrophage function, transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) was performed in human THP1-derived macrophages with PTX3 depletion. Notably,genes enrichment in PI3K/AKT signaling , JAK/STAT signaling and autophagy pathway were observed in PTX3 deficiency macrophages. This study highlights the critical roles of PTX3 on regulation macrophages homeostasis.
2023-10-01 | GSE192726 | GEO
Project description:Pattern recognition molecules (PRMs) form an important part of innate immunity and respond to infection and damage via triggering processes such as inflammation. The pentraxin family of soluble PRMs comprises long and short pentraxins, with the former containing unique N-terminal regions unrelated to other proteins or each other. No high-resolution structural information exists about long pentraxins, unlike the short pentraxins where there is an abundance of both X-ray and cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) derived structures. This study presents for the first time a high-resolution structure of the prototypical long pentraxin, PTX3. CryoEM yielded a 2.5 Å map of the C-terminal pentraxin domains that revealed a radically different quaternary structure compared to other pentraxins, comprising a glycosylated D4 symmetrical octameric complex stabilised by an extensive disulfide network. The cryoEM map indicated α-helices that extended N-terminal of the pentraxin domains that were not fully resolved. AlphaFold was used to predict the remaining N-terminal structure of the octameric PTX3 complex, revealing two long tetrameric coiled coils with two hinge regions, which was validated using classification of cryoEM 2D averages. The resulting hybrid cryoEM/AlphaFold structure allowed mapping of ligand binding sites, such as C1q and FGF2, as well as rationalisation of previous biochemical data. Given the relevance of PTX3 in conditions ranging from COVID-19 prognosis, cancer progression and female infertility, this structure could be used to inform the understanding and rational design of therapies for these disorders and processes.
2022-10-14 | PXD034602 | Pride
Project description:Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a life-threatening and progressive scarring disease of the lung. Loss of alveolar epithelial cells, inflammation, activation of fibroblasts, appearance of myofibroblasts and excessive deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) are central features of IPF pathogenesis, ultimately resulting in changes in tissue architecture and lung dysfunction. The two currently approved therapies, pirfenidone (Esbriet®) and nintedanib (Ofev®), significantly slow the rate of disease progression, but they do not halt or reverse tissue remodeling. Therefore, disease modifying strategies that influence (myo)fibroblast activity and ECM deposition could lead to promising new treatments. Here we demonstrate potent and effective in vitro antifibrotic properties of the selective prostacyclin (IP) receptor agonist, ACT-333679, on TGFβ1-stimulated primary human lung fibroblasts from non-diseased and IPF donors. We demonstrate that ACT-333679 inhibited fibrotic processes through elevation of cAMP, inhibition of YAP/TAZ signaling and subsequent suppression of YAP/TAZ-induced gene transcription. Our results describe attenuation of YAP/TAZ signaling through IP receptor activation as a novel mechanism that suppresses pro-fibrotic (myo)fibroblast activity and we offer a rationale to further explore the potential of IP receptor agonists for the treatment of IPF .
2019-01-24 | GSE109585 | GEO
Project description:In an endotoxaemic mouse model of sepsis, a tissue-based proteomics approach for biomarker discovery identified long pentraxin 3 (PTX3) as the lead candidate for inflamed myocardium. PTX3 accumulated as an octamer due to disulphide-bond formation in heart, kidney and lung ?common organ dysfunctions seen in patients with sepsis. Oligomeric moieties of PTX3 were also detectable in the circulation. The redox-state of PTX3 was quantified over the first 11 days in critically ill adult patients with sepsis. On admission day, there was no difference in the redox-state of PTX3 between survivors and non-survivors. From day 2 onwards, the conversion of octameric to monomeric PTX3 was consistently associated with a greater survival after 28 days of follow-up. For example, by day 2 post admission, octameric PTX3 was undetectable in survivors, but still constituted more than half of total PTX3 in non-survivors (P<0.001). Monomeric PTX3 was inversely associated with cardiac damage markers NT-proBNP, high sensitivity troponin I and T. In comparison to the conventional measurements of total PTX3 or NT-proBNP, the redox-sensitive oligomerization of PTX3 was more dynamic and a superior predictor of disease outcome.
2017-11-10 | MSV000081708 | MassIVE
Project description:Pentraxin-2 (PTX-2) is a constitutive, anti-inflammatory, innate immune plasma protein whose circulating level is decreased in chronic human fibrotic diseases. Recent studies indicate that systemic delivery of recombinant PTX-2 inhibits inflammatory diseases associated with fibrosis by blocking pro-fibrotic macrophage activation and promoting anti-inflammatory and regulatory macrophages. Here we show that recombinant human PTX-2 (rhPTX-2) retards the progression of chronic kidney disease in Col4a3 mutant mice that develop Alport syndrome, reducing blood markers of kidney failure, enhancing lifespan by 20%, and improving histological signs of disease. Exogenously-delivered rhPTX-2 is detected in macrophages but is also found in tubular epithelial cells where it counteracts macrophage activation and is cytoprotective for the epithelium. We performed transcriptional profiling of whole kidney homogenates and human proximal tubule epithelial cells (PTECs) to identify pathways differentially activated or suppressed in response to treatment with PTX-2. Computational analysis of genes regulated by rhPTX-2 identified the transcriptional regulator c-Jun and its binding partners, which form AP-1 complexes, as a central target for the function of rhPTX-2. Accordingly, PTX-2 attenuates c-Jun activation and reduces expression of AP-1 dependent inflammatory genes in both monocytes and epithelium. Our studies therefore identify rhPTX-2 as a potential therapy for chronic fibrotic disease of the kidney and an important inhibitor of pathological c-Jun signaling in this setting. 1. Total RNA from whole kidney homogenates of wildtype (Col4a3+/+) and knockout (Col4a3-/-) mice treated with PTX-2 was isolated and hybidized to Illumina Mouse WG-6 v2 Expression BeadChips. 2. Total RNA from human proximal tubules treated with plasma and PTX-2 was isolated and hybidized to Illumina HumanHT-12 v4 Expression BeadChips.
2016-08-11 | E-GEOD-85409 | biostudies-arrayexpress