A population of Regulatory T cells controls nociception through enkephalins to restrain skin inflammation [fixed scRNA-seq]
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE301586 | GEO | 2025/07/09
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:The skin, as a principal barrier tissue, integrates diverse signals discerned by sensory neurons and by immune cells to elicit adaptive responses to a wide range of stresses. While nociceptors, sensory neurons that initiate the sensation of pain, can mobilize and amplify the function of innate and adaptive immune effector cells, regulatory T (Treg) cells, a T cell subset expressing the transcription factor Foxp3, suppress systemic and local inflammatory responses. Considering the connectivity between nervous and immune systems for sensing and responding to damaging insults, we questioned whether Treg cells can modulate proinflammatory neuronal activity by acting directly on peripheral neurons. We found that Treg cells localized near axons innervating the skin and that short-term inactivation or ablation of Treg cells increased neuronal activation to noxious stimuli in a manner separable from their immunosuppressive function. Furthermore, a population of skin Treg cells was highly enriched for expression of Penk, the gene encoding the neuropeptide precursor for endogenous opioids enkephalins, which inhibit pain perception by inducing analgesia. Acute depletion of Penk expressing Treg cells, or inducible ablation of Penk in Treg cells increased neuronal activation in response to noxious stimuli and associated inflammation. Our study suggests that a population of Treg cells residing at barrier tissues exhibit a direct neuromodulatory activity opposing exacerbated activation of sensory neurons, at least in part through the production of an endogenous opioids, and by acting as an immune component of the neuro-immune axis, dampen responses to noxious pain stimuli and local inflammation.
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Project description:While regulatory T (Treg) cells are traditionally viewed as professional suppressors of antigen presenting and effector T cells in both autoimmunity and cancer, recent findings of distinct Treg functions in tissue maintenance suggest that their regulatory purview extends to a wider range of cells and is broader than previously assumed. To elucidate tumoral Treg “connectivity” to diverse tumor-supporting accessory cell types, we explored immediate early changes in their single cell transcriptomes upon punctual Treg depletion in experimental lung cancer and injury-induced inflammation. Prior to any notable T cell activation and inflammation, fibroblasts, endothelial and myeloid cells exhibited pronounced changes in their gene expression in both cancer and injury settings. Factor analysis revealed shared Treg-dependent gene programs, foremost, prominent upregulation of VEGF signaling-related genes upon Treg deprivation in either setting, as well as in Treg-poor vs Treg-rich human lung adenocarcinomas. Accordingly, punctual Treg depletion combined with short-term VEGF blockade showed markedly improved control of PD-1 blockade-resistant lung adenocarcinoma progression in mice compared to the corresponding monotherapies, highlighting a promising factor-based querying approach to elucidating novel rational combination treatments of solid organ cancers.
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Project description:Loss of function mutations in the SCN9a gene encoding voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.7 cause congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) and anosmia in otherwise normal humans and mice, suggesting that this channel may be a good analgesic drug target. Surprisingly, potent selective antagonists of Nav1.7 are weak analgesics. We therefore investigated whether Nav1.7 , as well as contributing to electrical signalling may have an additional function. Here we report that Nav1.7 deletion has profound effects on the sensory neuron transcriptome, leading to dysregulation of a number of transcription factors as well as upregulation of enkephalin precursor PENK mRNA and down regulation of CEACAM10 mRNA, a protein involved in noxious thermosensation. PENK mRNA is transcriptionally upregulated in Nav1.7 null mutant female sensory neurons, resulting in increased enkephalin expression in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. PENK expression is down-regulated by addition of the sodium ionophore monensin, suggesting that sodium may play a role as a second messenger. Application of the opioid antagonist naloxone strongly enhances noxious peripheral input into the spinal cord, and dramatically reduces analgesia in both male and female Nav1.7 null mutant mice, as well as in human Nav1.7 null mutants. These data show that loss of Nav1.7 expression increases opioid drive over the lifetime of mice and humans. They further suggest that Nav1.7 channel blockers alone may not replicate the phenotype of null mutant humans and mice, but should be potentiated with exogenous opioids. RNA was extracted from Dorsal Root Ganglia tissue from Nav1.7 Knock-Out, Nav1.8 KO and Nav1.9 KO mice (n = 3) and hybridised on Affymetrix Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array (GPL1261)
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