Shear stimulation of FOXC1 and FOXC2 differentially regulates cytoskeletal activity during lymphatic valve maturation
- Northwestern University, United States
- University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- Mayo Clinic, United States
Abstract
Mutations in the transcription factor FOXC2 are predominately associated with lymphedema. Herein, we demonstrate a key role for related factor FOXC1, in addition to FOXC2, in regulating cytoskeletal activity in lymphatic valves. FOXC1 is induced by laminar, but not oscillatory, shear and inducible, endothelial-specific deletion impaired postnatal lymphatic valve maturation in mice. However, deletion of Foxc2 induced valve degeneration, which is exacerbated in Foxc1; Foxc2 mutants. FOXC1 knockdown (KD) in human lymphatic endothelial cells increased focal adhesions and actin stress fibers whereas FOXC2-KD increased focal adherens and disrupted cell junctions, mediated by increased ROCK activation. ROCK inhibition rescued cytoskeletal or junctional integrity changes induced by inactivation of FOXC1 and FOXC2 in vitro and vivo respectively, but only ameliorated valve degeneration in Foxc2 mutants. These results identify both FOXC1 and FOXC2 as mediators of mechanotransduction in the postnatal lymphatic vasculature and posit cytoskeletal signaling as a therapeutic target in lymphatic pathologies.
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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.
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Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01HL126920,R01HL144129)
- Tsutomu Kume
National Institutes of Health (5T32HL094293)
- Pieter R Norden
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All procedures and animal studies were approved by Northwestern University's institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) (Protocol: IS00008794) or by the Animal Ethics Committee of Vaud, Switzerland.
Copyright
© 2020, Norden et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Shear stimulation of FOXC1 and FOXC2 differentially regulates cytoskeletal activity during lymphatic valve maturation
eLife 9:e53814.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.53814
