The Journal of experimental medicine
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Mus musculus enjoys pride of place at the center of contemporary biomedical research. Despite being the current model system of choice for in vivo mechanistic analysis, mice have clear limitations. ⋯ Available data suggest that the cold stress to which laboratory mice are ubiquitously subjected profoundly affects mouse physiology in ways that impair the modeling of human homeostasis and disease. Experimental attention to this key, albeit largely ignored, environmental variable is likely to have a broad transformative effect on biomedical research.
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After tissue damage, inflammatory cells infiltrate the tissue and release proinflammatory cytokines. HMGB1 (high mobility group box 1), a nuclear protein released by necrotic and severely stressed cells, promotes cytokine release via its interaction with the TLR4 (Toll-like receptor 4) receptor and cell migration via an unknown mechanism. We show that HMGB1-induced recruitment of inflammatory cells depends on CXCL12. ⋯ Fluorescence resonance energy transfer data show that the HMGB1-CXCL12 heterocomplex promotes different conformational rearrangements of CXCR4 from that of CXCL12 alone. Mononuclear cell recruitment in vivo into air pouches and injured muscles depends on the heterocomplex and is inhibited by AMD3100 and glycyrrhizin. Thus, inflammatory cell recruitment and activation both depend on HMGB1 via different mechanisms.
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
A genomic storm in critically injured humans.
Human survival from injury requires an appropriate inflammatory and immune response. We describe the circulating leukocyte transcriptome after severe trauma and burn injury, as well as in healthy subjects receiving low-dose bacterial endotoxin, and show that these severe stresses produce a global reprioritization affecting >80% of the cellular functions and pathways, a truly unexpected "genomic storm." In severe blunt trauma, the early leukocyte genomic response is consistent with simultaneously increased expression of genes involved in the systemic inflammatory, innate immune, and compensatory antiinflammatory responses, as well as in the suppression of genes involved in adaptive immunity. ⋯ The similarities in gene expression patterns between different injuries reveal an apparently fundamental human response to severe inflammatory stress, with genomic signatures that are surprisingly far more common than different. Based on these transcriptional data, we propose a new paradigm for the human immunological response to severe injury.
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Microbes activate pattern recognition receptors to initiate adaptive immunity. T cells affect early innate inflammatory responses to viral infection, but both activation and suppression have been demonstrated. We identify a novel role for B cells in the early innate immune response during bacterial sepsis. ⋯ During sepsis, marginal zone and follicular B cells are activated through type I interferon (IFN-I) receptor (IFN-α/β receptor [IFNAR]), and repleting Rag1(-/-) mice with WT, but not IFNAR(-/-), B cells improves IFN-I-dependent and -independent early cytokine responses. Repleting B cell-deficient mice with the IFN-I-dependent chemokine, CXCL10 was also sufficient to improve sepsis survival. This study identifies a novel role for IFN-I-activated B cells in protective early innate immune responses during bacterial sepsis.
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Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is characterized by enhanced proliferation and reduced apoptosis of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs). Because microRNAs have been recently implicated in the regulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis, we hypothesized that these regulatory molecules might be implicated in the etiology of PAH. In this study, we show that miR-204 expression in PASMCs is down-regulated in both human and rodent PAH. miR-204 down-regulation correlates with PAH severity and accounts for the proliferative and antiapoptotic phenotypes of PAH-PASMCs. ⋯ NFAT and SHP2 were needed to sustain PAH-PASMC proliferation and resistance to apoptosis. Finally, delivery of synthetic miR-204 to the lungs of animals with PAH significantly reduced disease severity. This study uncovers a new regulatory pathway involving miR-204 that is critical to the etiology of PAH and indicates that reestablishing miR-204 expression should be explored as a potential new therapy for this disease.