β-Catenin-NFkB-CFTR interactions in cholangiocytes regulate inflammation and fibrosis during ductular reaction
- Tsinghua University, China
- Boston Children's Hospital, United States
- University of Pittsburgh, United States
Abstract
Expansion of biliary epithelial cells (BECs) during ductular reaction (DR) is observed in liver diseases including cystic fibrosis (CF), and associated with inflammation and fibrosis, albeit without complete understanding of underlying mechanism. Using two different genetic mouse knockouts of b-catenin, one with b-catenin loss is hepatocytes and BECs (KO1), and another with loss in only hepatocytes (KO2), we demonstrate disparate long-term repair after an initial injury by 2-week choline-deficient ethionine-supplemented diet. KO2 show gradual liver repopulation with BEC-derived b-catenin-positive hepatocytes, and resolution of injury. KO1 showed persistent loss of b-catenin, NF-kB activation in BECs, progressive DR and fibrosis, reminiscent of CF histology. We identify interactions of b-catenin, NFkB and CF transmembranous conductance regulator (CFTR) in BECs. Loss of CFTR or b-catenin led to NF-kB activation, DR and inflammation. Thus, we report a novel b-catenin-NFkB-CFTR interactome in BECs, and its disruption may contribute to hepatic pathology of CF.
Data availability
Raw RNA-seq data and gene count quantification were submitted to NCBI GEO data base with accession ID GSE155981
Article and author information
Author details
Satdarshan P Monga
Funding
National Institutes of Health (1R01DK62277,1R01DK100287,1R01DK116993,R01CA204586,1R01CA251155-01)
- Satdarshan P Monga
National Institutes of Health (1R01CA258449)
- Sungjin Ko
National Institutes of Health (T32EB0010216,1F31DK115017)
- Jacquelyn O Russell
National Institutes of Health (P30DK120531)
- Satdarshan P Monga
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) Protocol #: 19126451 of the University of Pittsburgh.
Human subjects: The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Pittsburgh (STUDY19070068, STUDY20010114, and STUDY20040276 on 3/23/2021).
Copyright
© 2021, Hu 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.
Metrics
-
- 1,771
- views
-
- 265
- downloads
-
- 13
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
β-Catenin-NFkB-CFTR interactions in cholangiocytes regulate inflammation and fibrosis during ductular reaction
eLife 10:e71310.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71310
Further reading
-
- Cancer Biology
- Developmental Biology
Missense ‘hotspot’ mutations localized in six p53 codons account for 20% of TP53 mutations in human cancers. Hotspot p53 mutants have lost the tumor suppressive functions of the wildtype protein, but whether and how they may gain additional functions promoting tumorigenesis remain controversial. Here, we generated Trp53Y217C, a mouse model of the human hotspot mutant TP53Y220C. DNA damage responses were lost in Trp53Y217C/Y217C (Trp53YC/YC) cells, and Trp53YC/YC fibroblasts exhibited increased chromosome instability compared to Trp53-/- cells. Furthermore, Trp53YC/YC male mice died earlier than Trp53-/- males, with more aggressive thymic lymphomas. This correlated with an increased expression of inflammation-related genes in Trp53YC/YC thymic cells compared to Trp53-/- cells. Surprisingly, we recovered only one Trp53YC/YC female for 22 Trp53YC/YC males at weaning, a skewed distribution explained by a high frequency of Trp53YC/YC female embryos with exencephaly and the death of most Trp53YC/YC female neonates. Strikingly, however, when we treated pregnant females with the anti-inflammatory drug supformin (LCC-12), we observed a fivefold increase in the proportion of viable Trp53YC/YC weaned females in their progeny. Together, these data suggest that the p53Y217C mutation not only abrogates wildtype p53 functions but also promotes inflammation, with oncogenic effects in males and teratogenic effects in females.
-
- Developmental Biology
Stem cell self-renewal often relies on asymmetric fate determination governed by niche signals and/or cell-intrinsic factors but how these regulatory mechanisms cooperate to promote asymmetric fate decision remains poorly understood. In adult Drosophila midgut, asymmetric Notch (N) signaling inhibits intestinal stem cell (ISC) self-renewal by promoting ISC differentiation into enteroblast (EB). We have previously shown that epithelium-derived Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) promotes ISC self-renewal by antagonizing N pathway activity (Tian and Jiang, 2014). Here, we show that loss of BMP signaling results in ectopic N pathway activity even when the N ligand Delta (Dl) is depleted, and that the N inhibitor Numb acts in parallel with BMP signaling to ensure a robust ISC self-renewal program. Although Numb is asymmetrically segregated in about 80% of dividing ISCs, its activity is largely dispensable for ISC fate determination under normal homeostasis. However, Numb becomes crucial for ISC self-renewal when BMP signaling is compromised. Whereas neither Mad RNA interference nor its hypomorphic mutation led to ISC loss, inactivation of Numb in these backgrounds resulted in stem cell loss due to precocious ISC-to-EB differentiation. Furthermore, we find that numb mutations resulted in stem cell loss during midgut regeneration in response to epithelial damage that causes fluctuation in BMP pathway activity, suggesting that the asymmetrical segregation of Numb into the future ISC may provide a fail-save mechanism for ISC self-renewal by offsetting BMP pathway fluctuation, which is important for ISC maintenance in regenerative guts.
