Scleroderma Phenotype'' This Information Is Current As of September 27, 2021
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Autoantibodies to Fibrillin-1 Activate Normal Human Fibroblasts in Culture through the TGF-β Pathway to Recapitulate the ''Scleroderma Phenotype'' This information is current as of September 27, 2021. Xiaodong Zhou, Filemon K. Tan, Dianna M. Milewicz, Xinjian Guo, Constantin A. Bona and Frank C. Arnett J Immunol 2005; 175:4555-4560; ; doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.175.7.4555 http://www.jimmunol.org/content/175/7/4555 Downloaded from References This article cites 32 articles, 11 of which you can access for free at: http://www.jimmunol.org/content/175/7/4555.full#ref-list-1 http://www.jimmunol.org/ Why The JI? Submit online. • Rapid Reviews! 30 days* from submission to initial decision • No Triage! Every submission reviewed by practicing scientists • Fast Publication! 4 weeks from acceptance to publication by guest on September 27, 2021 *average Subscription Information about subscribing to The Journal of Immunology is online at: http://jimmunol.org/subscription Permissions Submit copyright permission requests at: http://www.aai.org/About/Publications/JI/copyright.html Email Alerts Receive free email-alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up at: http://jimmunol.org/alerts The Journal of Immunology is published twice each month by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc., 1451 Rockville Pike, Suite 650, Rockville, MD 20852 Copyright © 2005 by The American Association of Immunologists All rights reserved. Print ISSN: 0022-1767 Online ISSN: 1550-6606. The Journal of Immunology Autoantibodies to Fibrillin-1 Activate Normal Human Fibroblasts in Culture through the TGF- Pathway to Recapitulate the “Scleroderma Phenotype”1 Xiaodong Zhou,2* Filemon K. Tan,* Dianna M. Milewicz,† Xinjian Guo,* Constantin A. Bona,‡ and Frank C. Arnett* Fibroblasts from patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) are activated producing excessive amounts of extracellular matrix (ECM) components. Recently, we identified a new SSc-specific autoantibody against portions of fibrillin-1, a major component of ECM microfibrils and regulator of TGF-1 signaling. To examine a potential pathogenic role of anti-fibrillin-1 autoantibodies, normal human fibroblasts were treated with affinity-purified autoantibodies isolated from SSc sera and then examined for alterations in gene and protein expression levels using microarrays, quantitative RT-PCR, immunoblots, and immunofluorescence. Compared Downloaded from with fibroblasts cultured in normal medium or in medium containing normal human IgG, anti-fibrillin-1 autoantibody-treated normal dermal fibroblasts showed increased expression of COL and several other ECM components characteristically overex- pressed in SSc fibroblasts. This was accompanied by phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of Smad3. Neutralization of TGF-1 with anti-TGF-1 Abs significantly diminished the activation of fibroblasts by anti-fibrillin-1 autoantibodies. These data indicate that anti-fibrillin-1 autoantibodies can induce the activation of normal dermal fibroblasts into a profibrotic phenotype resembling that of SSc by potentially causing the release of sequestered TGF-1 from fibrillin-1-containing microfibrils in the http://www.jimmunol.org/ ECM. The Journal of Immunology, 2005, 175: 4555–4560. cleroderma or systemic sclerosis (SSc)3 is a chronic, mul- turn phosphorylates Smad3. Phosphorylated Smad3 (p-Smad3) tisystem disease characterized by widespread cutaneous translocates to the nucleus to activate transcription of target genes S and visceral fibrosis. Although the etiopathogenesis of SSc in the nucleus, such as COL (3). Furthermore, turnover of the ECM is unknown, it is believed to be a complex disorder of autoimmune components in SSc also appears to be influenced by a family of origin based on familial and clinical overlap with other autoim- matrix metalloproteinases (MMP), along with tissue inhibitors of mune diseases and the presence of circulating, highly disease-spe- MMP (TIMP) (4). by guest on September 27, 2021 cific autoantibodies to nuclear and nucleolar Ags (1). Pathological Recently, we have demonstrated that microsatellite and single findings in clinically affected SSc skin indicate that fibroblasts are nucleotide polymorphisms in and around the fibrillin-1 gene activated to produce excessive amounts of collagens (COL) and (FBN1) on chromosome 15q are associated with susceptibility to other extracellular matrix (ECM) components, likely via activation SSc (5, 6). A partial, in-frame duplication of the same gene ( fbn1) of TGF--dependent pathways (2). The ligand TGF- binds the is the cause of the tight skin (tsk) phenotype in a murine model of TGF- transmembrane receptor complex and induces phosphory- human SSc (7). Fibrillin-1 is the major constituent of 10- to 12-nm lation of TGF-RI by the TGF-RII (TGFBRII) kinase, which in microfibrils in the ECM and recently has been demonstrated to be an important regulator of TGF- (8). Mutations in FBN1 are † *Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunogenetics and Division of Medical known to cause Marfan syndrome, an autosomal dominant condi- Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas-Health Science Cen- ter, Houston, TX 77030; and ‡Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai Medical tion characterized by skeletal, ocular, and cardiovascular compli- School, New York, NY 10029 cations (9). In cultured fibroblasts from SSc patients, fibrillin-1 is Received for publication March 31, 2005. Accepted for publication July 12, 2005. synthesized and secreted normally into the ECM, but the fibrillin- The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page 1-containing microfibrils are unstable and turn over more rapidly charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. when compared with microfibrils from control fibroblasts (10). 1 This work was supported by National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Ar- First-degree relatives of patients with SSc also have the same mi- thritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Specialized Center of Research in crofibril instability, suggesting that this is an inherent genetic de- Scleroderma Grant (IP50AR44888; to F.C.A.), National Institutes of Health National fect (11). Theoretically, a breakdown of fibrillin-1-containing mi- Center for Research Resources 3M01-RR-02558-12S1 (to F.K.T.), National Institutes of Health R01AR46718 (to D.M.M.), Scleroderma Foundation and National Institutes crofibrils could lead to release of TGF- sequestered in of Health/National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases microfibrils (8). In addition, neoepitopes of unstable fibrillin-1 1R03AR050517-01A2 (to X.Z.) and M01RR02558 (General Clinical Research Center). could be revealed to the immune system resulting in an autoim- 2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Xiaodong Zhou, Division of mune response. Indeed, we have recently found that a significant Rheumatology and Clinical Immunogenetics, Department of Internal Medicine, Uni- fraction of SSc patients have circulating autoantibodies to portions versity of Texas-Health Science Center, 6431 Fannin, MSB5.270, Houston, TX 77030. E-mail address: [email protected] of fibrillin-1, which are SSc-specific (12–14). These autoantibod- 3 Abbreviations used in this paper: SSc, systemic sclerosis; ECM, extracellular ma- ies were detected with a recombinant peptide expressing the pro- trix; MMP, matrix metalloproteinase; TIMP, tissue inhibitors of MMP; COL, colla- line-rich region of fibrillin-1 (12, 13). Interestingly, the tsk mouse gen; CTGF, connective tissue growth factor; TGFBRII, TGF-R II; LTBP, latent also has been found to produce anti-fibrillin Abs as well (15). TGF- binding protein; p-Smad3, phosphorylated Smad3; LAP, latent-associated peptide. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that affinity-purified human Copyright © 2005 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc. 0022-1767/05/$02.00 4556 PROFIBROTIC ROLES OF ANTI-FIBRILLIN-1 AUTOANTIBODIES autoantibodies to fibrillin-1 from SSc patients might induce acti- Indirect immunofluorescene vation of normal human dermal fibroblasts using microarray After a 24-h treatment with affinity-purified anti-fibrillin-1 autoantibodies, screening of ECM gene expression profiles and quantitative RT- normal human IgG, or normal culture media, the fibroblasts were washed PCR, immunoblotting, and immunohistochemistry assays of cer- with PBS and fixed with 100% methanol at 4°C for 2 min. The fibroblasts tain ECM components known to play important roles in the pro- were washed with PBS again and incubated with p-Smad3 polyclonal Abs. fibrotic phenotype of the SSc fibroblast. After washing, the fibroblasts were incubated with anti-rabbit Ab conju- gated with FITC and washed with PBS. 4Ј,6Ј-Diamidino-2-phenylinodole was used for nuclear counterstaining. The images of fibroblasts with flu- Materials and Methods orescence-labeled proteins were acquired with a digital camera of the flu- Recombinant fibrillin-1 Ag and anti-fibrillin-1 autoantibodies orescence microscopy (Nikon). Our previous studies indicated that some autoantibodies to fibrillin-1 in Western blot analysis SSc sera, but not all, are directed against a 30-kDa glutathione fusion Cellular lysates from cultured fibroblasts were obtained using PBS-TDS protein containing the proline-rich C region of human fibrillin-1 (11, 12). (0.1% Triton X-100, 12.1 mM sodium deoxycholate, 3.5 mM SDS in PBS, The recombinant peptide (aa 378–495) in this study was cloned by RT- pH 7.4) containing a mixture