Epitope-specific engagement of the protein tyrosine phosphatase CD45 induces tumor necrosis factor-alpha gene expression via transcriptional mechanisms

A novel gene signature based on the hub genes of COVID-19 predicts the prognosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Background: Increasing evidence has demonstrated that there was a strong correlation between COVID-19 and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). However, the studies are limited, and the real biological mechanisms behind the IPF progression were still uncleared.

Methods: GSE70866 and GSE 157103 datasets were downloaded. The weight gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) algorithms were conducted to identify the most correlated gene module with COVID-19. Then the genes were extracted to construct a risk signature in IPF patients by performing Univariate and Lasso Cox Regression analysis. Univariate and Multivariate Cox Regression analyses were used to identify the independent value for predicting the prognosis of IPF patients. What’s more, the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), Gene Ontology (GO), and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were conducted to unveil the potential biological pathways. CIBERSORT algorithms were performed to calculate the correlation between the risk score and immune cells infiltrating levels.

Results: Two hundred thirty three differentially expressed genes were calculated as the hub genes in COVID-19. Fourteen of these genes were identified as the prognostic differentially expressed genes in IPF. Three (MET, UCHL1, and IGF1) of the fourteen genes were chosen to construct the risk signature. The risk signature can greatly predict the prognosis of high-risk and low-risk groups based on the calculated risk score. The functional pathway enrichment analysis and immune infiltrating analysis showed that the risk signature may regulate the immune-related pathways and immune cells.

Conclusion: We identified prognostic differentially expressed hub genes related to COVID-19 in IPF. A risk signature was constructed based on those genes and showed great value for predicting the prognosis in IPF patients. What’s more, three genes in the risk signature may be clinically valuable as potential targets for treating IPF patients and IPF patients with COVID-19.

Epitope-specific crosslinking of CD45 down-regulates membrane-associated tyrosine phosphatase activity and triggers early signalling events in human activated T cells

CD45 engagement by monoclonal antibodies on human activated T cells triggers tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) gene transcription in an epitope-specific manner. To dissect the early signalling events leading to TNF-alpha gene expression, we established that CD45 crosslinking resulted in tyrosine phosphorylation of p56lck, ZAP-70, CD3-zeta, LAT and Vav. This was accompanied by down-regulation of membrane-associated protein tyrosine phosphatase activity in the absence of demonstration of enhanced p56lck, p72syk and ZAP-70 kinase activity, which remained constitutive. These early events eventually triggered an intracellular Ca(2+) rise and phosphoinositide turnover. We conclude that down-regulation of membrane-associated tyrosine phosphatase activity by CD45 extracytoplasmic domain multimerization led, in an epitope-specific fashion, to unopposed tyrosine kinase activity and to the activation of the T-cell receptor/CD3 complex signalling cascade, resulting in TNF-alpha gene expression. This model strongly suggests that CD45 extracytoplasmic tail multimerization may contribute to the modulation T-cell functions.

Human tumor necrosis factor-alpha gene 3' untranslated region confers inducible toxin responsiveness to homologous promoter in monocytic THP-1 cells

To better define the role of 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) on transcriptional regulation of the human tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha gene, monocytic human THP-1 cells were transfected with two TNF-alpha promoter constructs spanning base pairs -1897/-1 and -1214/-1, respectively, and linked to the rabbit beta-globin gene. Quantitative globin gene expression of chimerae was measured by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. A construct linking the chicken beta-actin promoter and a deleted portion of the beta-globin gene was cotransfected and used as internal standard. Unexpectedly, when THP-1 cells were stimulated with lipopolysaccharide or toxic shock syndrome toxin-1, gene regulation was hardly detected. In contrast, endogenous TNF-alpha gene regulation measured by the same reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction procedure was vigorous. Remarkably, ligation of 3'UTR to chimeric constructs led to a drastic drop in the basal level of chimeric gene expression, resulting in a 15- to 40-fold induction of the reporter gene. Consistently, when the TNF-alpha promoter was replaced by the cytomegalovirus early immediate promoter, gene expression was also uniformly reduced but was no longer up-regulated upon stimulation with lipopolysaccharide and toxic shock syndrome toxin-1. These data provide the first line of evidence that, in addition to its role in TNF-alpha transcript stability and translation, human TNF-alpha 3'UTR also participates in modulating gene expression at the transcriptional level.