Fibrocytes and Fibroblasts—Where Are We
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International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology 116 (2019) 105595 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocel Fibrocytes and fibroblasts—Where are we now T ⁎ Sy Giin Chonga,b, Seidai Satoa,c, Martin Kolba, Jack Gauldiea, a Departments of Medicine and Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health, St Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada b School of Medicine and Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland c Division of Respiratory Medicine and Rheumatology, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Tokushima University, Tokushima, Japan ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Fibroblasts are considered major contributors to the process of fibrogenesis and the progression of matrix de- Fibrosis position and tissue distortion in fibrotic diseases such as Pulmonary Fibrosis. Recent discovery of the fibrocyte, a Fibroblast circulating possible precursor cell to the tissue fibroblast in fibrosis, has raised issues regarding the character- Fibrocyte ization of fibrocytes with respect to their morphology, growth characteristics in vitro, their biological role in vivo Myofibroblast and their potential utility as a biomarker and/ or treatment target in various human diseases. Characterization Extracellular matrix studies of the fibrocyte continue as does emerging conflicting data concerning the relationship to orwiththe Pulmonary fibrosis Exosomes lung fibroblast. The source of signals that direct the traffic of these cells, as well as their response totherapeutic Cancer-associated fibroblast intervention with newly available drugs, bring new insights to the understanding of this cell type. The identi- fication of exosomes from fibrocytes that can affect resident fibroblast activities suggest mechanisms oftheir influence on pathogenesis. Moreover, interesting comparisons with other pathologies are emerging involving the influence of circulating mesenchymal precursor cells on tissue responses. 1. Introduction express markers of both haematopoietic cells (CD34, CD43, CD68, CD164, CD45, LSP-1, MHC class II) and stromal cells (Pilling et al., The description of fibrocytes in 1994 by Bucala et al. (1994) marks 2009). To differentiate between fibrocytes and fibroblasts, there areat the beginning of an expanding field of discovery about these fibroblast- least 6 commercial reagents available which allow detection of cellular like cells, derived from the bone marrow and identified as a circulating fibronectin, CD90, TE-7, CD 248, HA-BP and FAP(Pilling et al., 2009). mesenchymal cell precursor. Since this initial discovery, there have In addition, fibrocytes were demonstrated to assume an irregular star been an increasing number of studies done on the characterization of (stellate) or spindle-shaped (fusiform) cell form when adherent or fibrocytes with respect to their morphology, growth characteristics in having migrated to sites of tissue injury (Pilling et al., 2009; Quan and vitro, their biological role in vivo and their potential utility as a bio- Bucala, 2006; Quan et al., 2004). Consistent with the knowledge at that marker and/or treatment target in various human diseases including time, for several years, the identification of collagen production (con- asthma, fibrosis of lung, liver and kidney, along with systemic fibrosis tent), together with the surface expression of CD34 and/or CD45, were and atherosclerosis, to name a few. used as the minimum criteria for identifying fibrocytes in culture, in tissue sections or in the circulation. That criteria still applies to this day 2. Characteristics of fibrocytes as there is still no single marker found for fibrocytes and fibroblasts. Table 1 provides a guide on the common markers used for the identi- Fibrocytes, which originate from bone marrow, bear characteristics fication and differentiation of fibrocytes and fibroblasts. However, the of both fibroblasts and monocytes, and hence exhibit a combination of identification of fibrocytes in culture remains difficult, partly duetothe connective tissue cell and myeloid features (Herzog and Bucala, 2010). plasticity of the cells. Fibrocytes express the stem cell marker CD34, the pan-haematopoietic Fibrocytes possess the ability to differentiate along mesenchymal marker CD45, monocyte markers including CD14 and CD11 and pro- lineages, including commitment to myofibroblasts or to adipocyte cells duce components of the connective tissue matrix, such as collagen-I, under different environmental cues (Hong et al., 2007), a feature dis- collagen-III and vimentin (Herzog and Bucala, 2010). Mature fibrocytes tinguishing them from fibroblasts. Fibrocytes demonstrate the ⁎ Corresponding author at: Departments of Medicine and Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health, St Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Gauldie). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocel.2019.105595 Received 8 July 2019; Received in revised form 26 August 2019; Accepted 28 August 2019 Available online 29 August 2019 1357-2725/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. S.G. Chong, et al. International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology 116 (2019) 105595 Table 1 well as for CCR7, expressed on fibrocytes, has been found to be high in Common markers used for the identification of fibrocytes and fibroblasts. the lungs and blood of patients with IPF and these levels correlate with Pilling et al. (2009) provide a more extensive list of markers present on fi- the numbers of circulating fibrocytes (Mehrad et al., 2007). The num- brocytes and fibrobroblasts. bers also correlate with the number of lung fibrocytes seen in IPF pa- Markers Fibrocytes Fibroblasts tients. Interestingly, in this study, they found that lung fibrocytes in IPF patients possess different characteristics compared to circulating fi- CD11a Present Absent brocytes (Heukels et al., 2018). This finding could be significant and CD134 Present Present CD45 Present Absent requires further investigation in detail if therapeutic targets in fibrotic CXCR4 Present Absent lung diseases are desired. The differential characteristics of circulating Alpha smooth muscle actin Present Present and lung fibrocytes could provide a reason for the ineffectiveness of Col-1 Present Present pirfenidone or nintedanib as a therapeutic cure for IPF patients, despite CD90 Absent Present their proven capability to slow down disease progression. TE-7 Absent Present S100A8/A9 Present Absent Also important to note, there are other chemokine ligand-receptor Fibronectin Absent Present pathways of fibrocyte recruitment, which includes chemokine sec- Vimentin Present Present ondary lymphoid tissue chemokine/chemokine ligand 21-CCR7 as well FAP Absent Present as CCL2-CCR2 and CCL12 (MCP5)-CCR2 (Phillips et al., 2004; Heukels et al., 2018; Gurczynski et al., 2016; Ekert et al., 2011). The existence of multiple recruitment pathways raises the question as to which pathway expression of CD34, CD45, collagen and vimentin during the early is activated under which environmental condition and what influences phase of their departure from the bone marrow or during the early fibrocytes to take one pathway over the others. This has not yetbeen phase of culture (Gomperts and Strieter, 2007). However, they lose fully delineated. expression of CD34 and CD45 and increasingly gain expression of alpha As there are two approved drugs currently in use for the treatment smooth-muscle actin (α-SMA) to become myofibroblast-like cells under of pulmonary fibrosis (nintedanib and pirfenidone), studies have been the influence of factors, such as transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) initiated to determine whether the fibrocyte population is affected by (Kage and Borok, 2012) and endothelin. Fibrocytes were also shown to these drugs. Inomata et al examined the effect of pirfenidone treatment differentiate to adipocytes when exposed to adipogenic induction on accumulation of lung fibrocytes in a murine osmotic pump 7day media and are also suggested to differentiate to chondrocytes and os- infusion bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis model. In their study, teoblasts when cultured under appropriate conditions (Gomperts and they confirmed that the accumulation of fibrocytes in murine fibrotic Strieter, 2007). Therefore, it is not surprising to note that fibrocytes lungs was reduced by treatment with pirfenidone through the inhibition have been implicated in the pathogenesis of multiple diseases and such of production of CCL2 and CCL12 and also through the partial inhibi- plasticity could be a reason why it is difficult to treat certain diseases, tion of production of CXCL12 (Inomata et al., 2014). Moreover, they such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Our understanding of this also found that inhibition of fibrocyte accumulation in the lungs was plasticity feature of fibrocytes remains poor despite significant re- significant on day 14 after bleomycin administration. However, the search. effect of pirfenidone on fibrocyte accumulation on day 21 wasless Philips et al demonstrated the importance of CXCR4-SDF-1/CXCL12 significant (Inomata et al., 2014). It is worth noting in this osmotic chemokine pathways in recruiting fibrocytes from bone marrow to the pump model, with a more chronic administration of bleomycin, marked target tissue (Phillips et al., 2004). Mice with