Project description:Graves’ ophthalmopathy (GO) is an extrathyroidal complication of Graves’ hyperthyroidism. Orbital fibroblast, an important cell in the pathogenesis of GO, is responsible for GO characteristics during active and inactive stages; however, information on the extensive profiles and the mechanistic regulations behind orbital fibroblast phenotypes are currently limited. The aim of this study was to compare the proteome profile of orbital fibroblasts isolated from inactive GO, active GO and healthy control. The proteome profile was further integrated with global DNA methylation data to identify this epigenetics regulation involved in the pathogenesis of GO. Methods Orbital fibroblasts culture isolated from five inactive GO, four active GO and five controls were cultured for total protein and DNA extraction. The labelled and fractionated proteins were analyzed with a liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS). On the other hand, the bisulphite-treated DNA was measured with the Illumina Infinium Human Methylation 450K beadchip. Proteome and methylation data were validated by real-time quantitative (RQ)-PCR. Network, pathway and functional analysis were performed by Ingenuity (Qiagen). Results Orbital fibroblasts from active GO displayed overexpression of proteins typically involved with inflammation, cellular proliferation, hyaluronan synthesis and adipogenesis, while several proteins linked to extracellular matrix (ECM) biology and fibrotic disease were overexpressed in orbital fibroblasts from inactive GO. The DNA methylation patterns were similar in healthy control and inactive GO orbital fibroblasts which were distinct from active GO orbital fibroblasts. In orbital fibroblasts from active GO hypermethylated genes link to inflammation while those genes hypomethylated are involved in adipogenesis and autoimmune-related genes. For the network analysis, overlapped between hypermethylated and hypomethylated genes were observed including NF-B, ERK1/2, Alp, RNA polymerase II, Akt and IFNα. In addition, NF-κB, Akt and IFNα were also identified in networks from the differentially expressed proteins. In general, poor correlation between protein expression, DNA methylation and mRNA expression in our study was observed.

Project description:Orbital fibrosis is a hallmark of tissue remodeling in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO). Previous studies have shown that interleukin (IL)-11 plays a pivotal profibrotic role in various inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. However, the expression pattern of IL-11 in patients with TAO and whether IL-11 is mechanistically linked with pathological fibrosis remains unknown. In this study, we investigated IL-11 levels in the serum and orbital connective tissue of patients with TAO, and evaluated the correlation of these levels with the patient’s clinical activity score. We also evaluated the expression pattern of IL-11Rα in orbital connective tissue. Furthermore, we elucidated the regulatory factors, profibrotic function, and downstream signaling pathways for IL-11 in TAO using in vitro studies. Serum and orbital connective tissues IL-11 levels were increased in patients with TAO, as compared with healthy controls. In addition, both levels were positively correlated with disease activity. Single-cell RNA sequencing of orbital connective tissue indicated that IL-11Rα was dominantly expressed in orbital fibroblasts (OFs). RNA sequencing of paired unstimulated and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1-stimulated samples demonstrated that upregulation of IL-11 expression defined the dominant transcriptional response. IL-11 signaling was also confirmed to be downstream of TGF-β1 and IL-1β. Therefore, we deduced that IL-11 protein is secreted in an autocrine loop in TAO. We also indicated that IL-11 mediated the profibrotic phenotype switch by detecting the expression of myofibroblast differentiation markers, including α-smooth muscle actin and collagen type I α1, which could be abrogated by an anti-IL-11 neutralizing antibody. Furthermore, we revealed that extracellular regulated protein kinase may be a crucial factor in the pro-fibrotic, translationally specific signaling activity of IL-11. These data demonstrate that IL-11 plays a crucial role in orbital fibroblast phenotype switching and may be a potential therapeutic target candidate for the treatment of TAO.

Project description:Graves ophthalmopathy (GO), a manifestation of Graves' disease, is an organ-specific autoimmune disease. Intravenous glucocorticoid therapy (ivGCs) is the first-line treatment for moderate-to-severe and active GO. However, ivGCs is only effective in 70-80% of GO patients. Insensitive patients who choose 12 weeks ivGCs were not only delayed in treatment, but also took the risk of adverse reactions of glucocorticoids. At present, there is still a lack of effective indicators to predict the therapeutic effect of ivGCs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find biomarkers that can determine the sensitivity of ivGCs before the formulation of treatment, and to clarify the mechanism of its regulation of ivGCs sensitivity. This study first characterized the miRNA profiles of plasma exosomes by miRNA sequencing to identify miRNAs differentially expressed between GO patients with significant improvement (SI) and non-significant improvement (NSI) after ivGCs treatment. According to the function of the target genes, we screened 10 differentially expressed miRNAs. Results showed that compared with NSI patients, mir-885-3p was up-regulated and mir-4474-3p and mir-615-3p were down regulated in the exosomes of SI patients. Based on statistical difference and miRNA function, mir-885-3p was selected for follow-up study. In vitro functional analysis of exosomes mir-885-3p showed that exosomes from SI patients (SI-exo) could transfer mir-885-3p to orbital fibroblasts (OFs), up-regulate the GRE luciferase reporter gene plasmid activity and the level of glucocorticoid receptor (GR), down-regulate the level of inflammatory factors, and improve the glucocorticoid sensitivity of OFs. In addition, we found that high levels of mir-885-3p could inhibit AKT/NFκB signaling pathway, up‐regulate the GRE plasmid activity and GR level, and down‐regulate the level of inflammatory factors of OFs. Moreover, the improvement of glucocorticoid sensitivity by mir-885-3p transmitted by SI-exo can also be inhibited by AKT/NFκB agonist. Finally, through the in vivo experiment of GO mouse model, we further determined the relationship between exosomes mir‐885‐3p sequence, AKT/NFκB signaling pathway, and glucocorticoid sensitivity. As a conclusion, plasma exosomes deliver mir‐885‐3p and inhibit AKT/NFκB signaling pathway to improve the glucocorticoid sensitivity of OFs. Exosomes mir-885-3p can be used as a biomarker to determine the sensitivity of ivGCs in GO patients.

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Dihydroartemisinin Exerts Antifibrotic and Anti-inflammatory Effects in Graves’ Ophthalmopathy by Targeting Orbital Fibroblasts

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