Project description:Chronic inflammation and gut microbiota dysbiosis are risk factors for colorectal cancer. In clinical practice, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients have a greatly increased risk of developing colitis associated colorectal cancer (CAC). However, the basis underlying the initiation of CAC remains to be explored. Systematic filtration through existing genome-wide association study (GWAS) and conditional deletion of Zfp90 in CAC mice model indicated that Zfp90 was a putative oncogene in CAC development. Strikingly, depletion of gut microbiota eliminated the tumorigenic effect of Zfp90 in CAC mice model. Moreover, fecal microbiota transplantation demonstrated Zfp90 promoted CAC depending on gut microbiota. Combining 16s rDNA sequencing in feces specimens from CAC mice model, we speculated that Prevotella copri-defined microbiota might mediate the oncogenic role of Zfp90 in the development of CAC. Mechanistic studies revealed Zfp90 accelerated CAC development through Tlr4-Pi3k-Akt-Nf-κb pathway. Our findings elucidated the crucial role of Zfp90-microbiota-Nf-κb axis in creating a tumor-promoting environment and suggested therapeutic targets for CAC prevention and treatment.
Project description:Colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC) is a serious complication of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with complex etiology involving chronic inflammation, immune dysregulation, and gut microbiota dysbiosis. Creatine, a natural nitrogenous com-pound, possesses anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties, but its role in CAC remains unclear.We established an AOM/DSS-induced mouse model of CAC and supplemented mice with creatine. We assessed the effects of creatine on colitis severity, tumor burden, and histopathology. Additionally, we investigated the impact of crea-tine on gut barrier function, macrophage polarization, and gut microbiota composi-tion.Creatine supplementation significantly alleviated DSS-induced colitis, reduced tumor burden, and delayed CAC progression in mice. Mechanistically, creatine im-proved gut barrier function by protecting tight junction proteins from degradation in-duced by the modeling stimulus,influenced macrophage polarization, and main-tained gut microbiota diversity, promoting the abundance of beneficial bacteria while reducing harmful ones.Our findings suggest that creatine supplementation may rep-resent a promising supportive therapy for IBD and CAC by modulating the gut micro-biota and immune microenvironment. Further investigation is warranted to explore the clinical potential of creatine in the management of CAC.
Project description:Chronic inflammation underlies tumor initiation, progression, invasion, and metastasis. In the colon, long-term exposure to chronic inflammation drives colitis associated colon cancer (CAC) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). While the causal and clinical links between chronic inflammation and CAC are well established, our molecular understanding of how chronic inflammation leads to the development of colon cancer is still lacking. Here we deconstruct the evolving microenvironment of CAC, by measuring proteomic changes and extracellular matrix (ECM) organization over time in a genetically modified mouse model of CAC. We detect early changes in ECM structure and composition, and report that the transcriptional regulator heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) plays a crucial role in orchestrating these events. Activated in stromal fibroblasts of the gut, HSF1 promotes ECM remodeling and inflammatory programs which lead to the development of CAC. Loss of HSF1 abrogates ECM assembly by colon fibroblasts in cell culture, prevents inflammation-induced ECM remodeling in mice and significantly inhibits progression to CAC. Establishing the relevance of our experimental findings to human disease, we find high activation of stromal HSF1 in CAC patients, and detect the HSF1-dependent proteomic ECM signature in human colorectal cancer. Thus, HSF1-dependent ECM remodeling plays a crucial role in mediating inflammation-driven colon cancer.
Project description:In this study we performed MeRIP-Seq to study N6-methyl adenosine (m6A) and and N6,2′ -O-dimethyladenosine (m6Am) modification of mRNA. We investigated the effect of the microbiota on the transcriptome and epitranscriptomic modifications in murine liver and cecum. We compared m6A/m modification profiles in cecum of conventionally raised (CONV) and germ-free (GF) mice. We additionally included GF mice colonised with the flora of CONV mice for four weeks (ex-GF), for which show that they exhibit similar patterns of the most abundant genera of gut bacteria as CONV mice. We added mice treated with several antibiotics to deplete the gut flora (abx)and vancomycin treated mice in which the genera Akkermansia, Escherichia/Shigella and Lactobacillus were enriched. Furthermore, we included GF mice colonised with the commensal bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila (Am), Lactobacillus plantarum (Lp) and Escherichia coli Nissle (Ec) and analysed their m6A/m modification profiles. In addition, we analysed changes in m6A/m- modified liver RNA for CONV, GF, and Am, Lp and Ec mice.
Project description:The gut microbiome influences the development of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. One such condition is autoimmune uveitis, a sight-threatening ocular inflammation driven by retina-specific T cells. Using a model of spontaneous experimental autoimmune uveitis (sEAU) we showed that gut commensals provide immune stimuli that trigger the disease. Here we report that uveitis-promoting microbes are present in human gut flora and that colonization of germ-free (GF) mice with commensal flora from healthy human donors was sufficient to provoke disease. Severity of sEAU correlated with expansion of Akkermansia and contraction of short-chain fatty acid (SCFA)–producing Firmicutes, followed by decreased SCFA levels and a dominant gut Th1 effector response. Mechanistic gain-of-function experiments, enriching GF sEAU mice with Akkermansia, reproduced these microbiome, metabolite and immune phenotype shifts, and exacerbated disease. We propose that Akkermansia promotes autoimmunity by outcompeting SCFA-producers and enhancing Th1-type responses. Notably, an inverse correlation between Akkermansia (Verrucomicrobia) and Firmicutes was also present in fecal microbiome of patients with uveitis, multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease. These findings reveal a stereotypic gut microbial interaction network that regulates systemic immune balance, and may represent an ecologically conserved mechanism through which the gut microbiome modulates autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Project description:Chronic inflammation underlies tumor initiation, progression, invasion, and metastasis. In the colon, long-term exposure to chronic inflammation drives colitis associated colon cancer (CAC) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). While the causal and clinical links between chronic inflammation and CAC are well established, our molecular understanding of how chronic inflammation leads to the development of colon cancer is still lacking. Here we deconstruct the evolving microenvironment of CAC, by measuring proteomic changes and extracellular matrix (ECM) organization over time in a genetically modified mouse model of CAC. We detect early changes in ECM structure and composition, and report that the transcriptional regulator heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) plays a crucial role in orchestrating these events. Activated in stromal fibroblasts of the gut, HSF1 promotes ECM remodeling and inflammatory programs which lead to the development of CAC. Loss of HSF1 abrogates ECM assembly by colon fibroblasts in cell culture, prevents inflammation-induced ECM remodeling in mice and significantly inhibits progression to CAC. Establishing the relevance of our experimental findings to human disease, we find high activation of stromal HSF1 in CAC patients, and detect the HSF1-dependent proteomic ECM signature in human colorectal cancer. Thus, HSF1-dependent ECM remodeling plays a crucial role in mediating inflammation-driven colon cancer.