BRE Facilitates Skeletal Muscle Regeneration by Promoting Satellite Cell Motility and Differentiation Lihai Xiao and Kenneth Ka Ho Lee*
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© 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd | Biology Open (2016) 5, 100-111 doi:10.1242/bio.012450 RESEARCH ARTICLE BRE facilitates skeletal muscle regeneration by promoting satellite cell motility and differentiation Lihai Xiao and Kenneth Ka Ho Lee* ABSTRACT formed myofibers will further fuse with existing intact myofibers The function of the Bre gene in satellite cells was investigated during to repair the damaged muscle. The extent of this bioactivity is skeletal muscle regeneration. The tibialis anterior leg muscle depending on the severity of injury. In vitro, it is possible to follow was experimentally injured in Bre knockout mutant (BRE-KO) mice. the chronological and dynamic process of satellite cell migration, ’ It was established that the accompanying muscle regeneration was differentiation and fusion (O Connor et al., 2007; Bae et al., 2008). impaired as compared with their normal wild-type counterparts (BRE- Many proteins have been now identified to be important in the WT). There were significantly fewer pax7+ satellite cells and smaller regulation of satellite cell migration which includes: fibroblast newly formed myofibers present in the injury sites of BRE-KO mice. growth factor (FGF), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and IL-4 Bre was required for satellite cell fusion and myofiber formation. The (Lluri and Jaworski, 2005; Lafreniere et al., 2006). Components of cell fusion index and average length of newly-formed BRE-KO the extracellular matrix (such as fibronectin and laminin) and α myofibers were found to be significantly reduced as compared with chemokines (such as SDF-1 ) also play important roles in BRE-WT myofibers. It is well established that satellite cells are highly regulating these biological processes (Griffin et al., 2010). invasive which confers on them the homing ability to reach the muscle The Bre (brain and reproductive organ-expressed protein) gene injury sites. Hence, we tracked the migratory behavior of these cells was originally identified as a gene that was responsive to cellular using time-lapse microscopy. Image analysis revealed no difference DNA damage and retinoic acid treatment (Li et al., 1995). in directionality of movement between BRE-KO and BRE-WT satellite Normally, this gene was found extensively expressed in brain, cells but there was a significant decrease in the velocity of BRE-KO testicular and ovarian tissues, hence it was named Bre. Subsequent cell movement. Moreover, chemotactic migration assays indicated studies have revealed that Bre was expressed in most of the organs that BRE-KO satellite cells were significantly less responsive to including the skeletal muscles. The Bre gene encodes a 1.9 kb full chemoattractant SDF-1α than BRE-WT satellite cells. We also length mRNA and transcribes a highly conserved 383 amino acid established that BRE normally protects CXCR4 from SDF-1α- protein, with the molecule weight of 44 kDa. The protein contains induced degradation. In sum, BRE facilitates skeletal muscle no known functional domains. BRE protein, also known as regeneration by enhancing satellite cell motility, homing and fusion. TNFRSF1A modulator or BRCC45, is normally expressed in the cytoplasm but under stress and pathological conditions, it is also KEY WORDS: BRE, Knockout mice, Muscle satellite cells, found in the nucleus. In the nucleus, BRE is a component of the Skeletal muscle regeneration, Cell migration BRCA1-RAP80 complex and acts as an adaptor protein linking NBA1 with the rest of the protein complex. Following DNA INTRODUCTION damage, the complex exhibited E3 ligase activity so as to enhance Skeletal muscle accounts for approximately 40-50% of the human cell survival (Dong et al., 2003). In the cytoplasm, BRE is also a body’s mass and it’s the most abundant tissue. The main function of component of the BRISC (BRCC36 Isopeptidase complex) skeletal muscle is to maintain posture and generate movement of the complex. During apoptotic induction, BRE will bind to the body. Besides bone marrow, skeletal muscle exhibits a tremendous cytoplasmic region of TNF-R1 (Gu et al., 1998), Fas (Li et al., regenerative capacity in response to injuries (Collins et al., 2005). 2004) and DISC (Patterson et al., 2010) to protect cells from The main regenerative potential of skeletal muscle is derived from a apoptosis and enhance cell survival. small population of stem cells found outside muscle fibers called In this study, we examined the function of BRE in skeletal satellite cells. Under normal condition, satellite cells are maintained muscles since nothing is known about its normal function in vivo. in a quiescent state and accounted for only about 2-7% of the total We generated BRE knockout (BRE-KO) mice and studied how the nuclei observed in adult skeletal muscles (Abou-Khalil et al., 2010). absence of BRE affected skeletal muscle regeneration. We also However, this percentage will increase to about 10-15% in response isolated satellite stem cells from wild-type (BRE-WT) and BRE-KO to muscle injury, when quiescent satellite cells are induced to mouse skeletal muscles and compared the ability of these cells to proliferate. The satellite cells will migrate to the injury site, fuse with migrate, fuse and differentiate. Using the skeletal muscle model, we each other and differentiate to create new myofibers. The newly- maximize our understanding of BRE in these fundamental processes. In addition, the satellite stem cells also present the Stem Cell and Regeneration Thematic Research Programme, School of Biomedical opportunity to investigate the developmental potency of satellite Sciences, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. stem cells in the absence of BRE expression. *Author for correspondence ([email protected]) RESULTS This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Bre expression in BRE-WT and BRE-KO muscles License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, Cre/+ distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. BRE-KO mice were generated by crossing male TNAP mice with female BREfx/fx mice according to the breeding strategy Received 26 April 2015; Accepted 30 November 2015 illustrated in Fig. S1. We first validate that the Bre gene was Biology Open 100 RESEARCH ARTICLE Biology Open (2016) 5, 100-111 doi:10.1242/bio.012450 Fig. 1. Validation of Bre null mutation in the skeletal muscles of BRE-KO mice. (A) PCR genotyping showing exon 3 of the Bre gene has − − been deleted in Bre / tissue. RT-qPCR (B) and Western blot (C) − − analysis also confirm the Bre / skeletal muscles do not express Bre mRNA and protein, respectively. GAPDH was used as internal control. completely knocked out at the DNA, mRNA and protein levels in newborn BRE-KO mice were grossly indistinguishable from our BRE-KO mice. Skeletal muscle cells were harvested from BRE-WT mice. We x-rayed the older mice and again found no BRE-WT and BRE-KO mice and used for PCR, Real-time difference between the skeleton of BRE-KO and BRE-WT mice RT-PCR and western blot analysis. The PCR genotyping show (Fig. S2). exon 3 has been deleted from the full length Bre gene (Fig. 1A). The RT-qPCR results revealed that BRE-WT skeletal muscle cells Skeletal muscle regeneration is delayed in BRE-KO mice could express Bre mRNA but not by BRE-KO cells (Fig. 1B). We investigated whether the Bre gene influences skeletal muscle Similarly, western blot show BRE-WT skeletal muscle cells could regeneration. The tibialis anterior muscle of both BRE-WT and express BRE protein not BRE-KO cells (Fig. 1C). We found that BRE-KO mice were injected with CTX and then harvested for Fig. 2. Tibialis anterior muscles of BRE-KO (A-D) and BRE-WT (E-H) mice chemically damaged with cardiotoxin and allowed to regenerate for 4-15 days. Histological sections stained with H&E showed there were necrotic myofibers and numerous small mononucleated lymphocytes (red arrows) present at the injury sites in both BRE-KO mice (B) and BRE-WT (F). At day 7 post-injury, almost of the damaged myofibers have disappeared and were replaced by small newly-formed myofibers (yellow arrows) with centrally localized nuclei in BRE-WT muscles (G). In BRE-KO muscles, there were both newly formed myofibers and myofibers in the process of being formed (yellow arrows). The latter was less evident than in corresponding BRE-WT injured muscles. There were still numerous degenerating myofibers present in the BRE-KO injury site (C). At day 15 post-injury, there were more newly regenerated myofibers present in both BRE-WT (H) and BRE-KO (D) muscles. (I) Bar chart showing the average cross section area of the newly-formed myofibers in 7 and 15 day post-injury muscles. Only myofibers with centrally localized nuclei were measured and 3 mice for each genotype were analyzed. The results showed newly-formed myofibers were significantly smaller in BRE-KO muscles than in BRE-WT muscles, day 7 (**P<0.01) and day 15 (***P<0.001) post-injury. Data are presented as mean±s.e.m. Scale bar=50 μm. Biology Open 101 RESEARCH ARTICLE Biology Open (2016) 5, 100-111 doi:10.1242/bio.012450 Fig. 3. RT-qPCR analysis of the muscle injury site in BRE-WT mice, 4 days post-injury. The results show a significantly increase in TGFβ1 (A), HGF (B), IL-6 (C), EGF (D), SDF-1α (E) and IGF-1 (F) expression compared with the uninjured contralateral control muscles. Data are presented as mean±s.e.m. Significant difference, **P<0.01 and *P<0.05. N=3. analysis 4, 7 and 15 days post-injection. Between day 1-4 post- are centrally localized within the fibers. In the BRE-KO injury injury, there were necrotic myofibers and numerous small muscle site, there were still numerous degenerating myofibers mononucleated lymphocytes present at the injury sites of both but also small newly-formed myofibers and myofibers in the BRE-WT (Fig.