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Elias G, Schonfeld M, Saleh S, Parrish M, Barmanova M, Weinman SA, Tikhanovich I. Sepsis-induced endothelial dysfunction drives acute-on-chronic liver failure through Angiopoietin-2-HGF-C/EBPβ pathway. Hepatology 2023; 78:803-819. [PMID: 36943063 PMCID: PMC10440279 DOI: 10.1097/hep.0000000000000354] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2022] [Accepted: 02/13/2023] [Indexed: 03/23/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is an acute liver and multisystem failure in patients with previously stable cirrhosis. A common cause of ACLF is sepsis secondary to bacterial infection. Sepsis-associated ACLF involves a loss of differentiated liver function in the absence of direct liver injury, and its mechanism is unknown. We aimed to study the mechanism of sepsis-associated ACLF using a novel mouse model. APPROACH AND RESULTS Sepsis-associated ACLF was induced by cecal ligation and puncture procedure (CLP) in mice treated with thioacetamide (TAA). The combination of TAA and CLP resulted in a significant decrease in liver synthetic function and high mortality. These changes were associated with reduced metabolic gene expression and increased CCAAT enhancer binding protein beta (C/EBPβ) transcriptional activity. We found that C/EBPβ binding to its target gene promoters was increased. In humans, C/EBPβ chromatin binding was similarly increased in the ACLF group compared with control cirrhosis. Hepatocyte-specific Cebpb knockout mice had reduced mortality and increased gene expression of hepatocyte differentiation markers in TAA/CLP mice, suggesting that C/EBPβ promotes liver failure in these mice. C/EBPβ activation was associated with endothelial dysfunction, characterized by reduced Angiopoietin-1/Angiopoietin-2 ratio and increased endothelial production of HGF. Angiopoietin-1 supplementation or Hgf knockdown reduced hepatocyte C/EBPβ accumulation, restored liver function, and reduced mortality, suggesting that endothelial dysfunction induced by sepsis drives ACLF through HGF-C/EBPβ pathway. CONCLUSIONS The transcription factor C/EBPβ is activated in both mouse and human ACLF and is a potential therapeutic target to prevent liver failure in patients with sepsis and cirrhosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Grant Elias
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, U.S.A
| | - Michael Schonfeld
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, U.S.A
| | - Sara Saleh
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, U.S.A
| | - Mark Parrish
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, U.S.A
| | - Marina Barmanova
- Liver Center, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, U.S.A
| | - Steven A Weinman
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, U.S.A
- Kansas City VA Medical Center, Kansas City, MO, USA
| | - Irina Tikhanovich
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, U.S.A
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Liu L, Yao D, Chen Z, Duan S. A comprehensive signature based on endoplasmic reticulum stress-related genes in predicting prognosis and immunotherapy response in melanoma. Sci Rep 2023; 13:8232. [PMID: 37217516 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-35031-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2023] [Accepted: 05/11/2023] [Indexed: 05/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Melanoma is considered as one of the most invasion types of skin cancer with high mortality rates. Although combination of immune checkpoint therapy with local surgical excision provide a novel promising therapeutic strategies, the overall prognosis of melanoma patients remains unsatisfactory. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, a process of protein misfolding and undue accumulation, has been proven to play an indispensable regulatory role in tumor progression and tumor immunity. However, whether the signature based ER genes has predictive value for the prognosis and immunotherapy of melanoma has not been systematically manifested. In this study, the LASSO regression and multivariate Cox regression were applied to construct a novel signature for predicting melanoma prognosis both in the training and testing set. Intriguingly, we found that patients endowed with high- and low-risk scores displayed differences in clinicopathologic classification, immune cell infiltration level, tumor microenvironment, and immune checkpoint treatment response. Subsequently, based on molecular biology experiments, we validated that silencing the expression of RAC1, an ERG composed of the risk signature, could restrain the proliferation and migration, promote apoptosis, as well as increase the expression of PD-1/PD-L1 and CTLA4 in melanoma cells. Taken together, the risk signature was regarded as promising predictors for melanoma prognosis and might provide prospective strategies to ameliorate patients' response to immunotherapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Longqing Liu
- Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Enshi Prefecture Ethnic Hospital, 178 Hangkong Avenue, Enshi, Hubei Province, China
| | - Dilang Yao
- Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Enshi Prefecture Ethnic Hospital, 178 Hangkong Avenue, Enshi, Hubei Province, China
| | - Zhiwei Chen
- Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Enshi Prefecture Ethnic Hospital, 178 Hangkong Avenue, Enshi, Hubei Province, China.
| | - Shidong Duan
- Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Enshi Prefecture Ethnic Hospital, 178 Hangkong Avenue, Enshi, Hubei Province, China.
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Hartl L, Roelofs JJTH, Dijk F, Bijlsma MF, Duitman J, Spek CA. C/EBP-Family Redundancy Determines Patient Survival and Lymph Node Involvement in PDAC. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:ijms24021537. [PMID: 36675048 PMCID: PMC9867044 DOI: 10.3390/ijms24021537] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2022] [Revised: 01/06/2023] [Accepted: 01/09/2023] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a dismal disease with a poor clinical prognosis and unsatisfactory treatment options. We previously found that the transcription factor CCAAT/Enhancer-Binding Protein Delta (C/EBPδ) is lowly expressed in PDAC compared to healthy pancreas duct cells, and that patient survival and lymph node involvement in PDAC is correlated with the expression of C/EBPδ in primary tumor cells. C/EBPδ shares a homologous DNA-binding sequence with other C/EBP-proteins, leading to the presumption that other C/EBP-family members might act redundantly and compensate for the loss of C/EBPδ. This implies that patient stratification could be improved when expression levels of multiple C/EBP-family members are considered simultaneously. In this study, we assessed whether the quantification of C/EBPβ or C/EBPγ in addition to that of C/EBPδ might improve the prediction of patient survival and lymph node involvement using a cohort of 68 resectable PDAC patients. Using Kaplan-Meier analyses of patient groups with different C/EBP-expression levels, we found that both C/EBPβ and C/EBPγ can partially compensate for low C/EBPδ and improve patient survival. Further, we uncovered C/EBPβ as a novel predictor of a decreased likelihood of lymph node involvement in PDAC, and found that C/EBPβ and C/EBPδ can compensate for the lack of each other in order to reduce the risk of lymph node involvement. C/EBPγ, on the other hand, appears to promote lymph node involvement in the absence of C/EBPδ. Altogether, our results show that the redundancy of C/EBP-family members might have a profound influence on clinical prognoses and that the expression of both C/EPBβ and C/EBPγ should be taken into account when dichotomizing patients according to C/EBPδ expression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonie Hartl
- Laboratory for Experimental Oncology and Radiobiology, Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine, Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Cancer Center Amsterdam, Cancer Biology and Immunology, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Joris J. T. H. Roelofs
- Department of Pathology, Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Frederike Dijk
- Cancer Center Amsterdam, Cancer Biology and Immunology, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Department of Pathology, Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Maarten F. Bijlsma
- Laboratory for Experimental Oncology and Radiobiology, Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine, Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Cancer Center Amsterdam, Cancer Biology and Immunology, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - JanWillem Duitman
- Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Department of Experimental Immunology, Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Amsterdam Infection & Immunity, Inflammatory Diseases, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - C. Arnold Spek
- Laboratory for Experimental Oncology and Radiobiology, Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine, Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Cancer Center Amsterdam, Cancer Biology and Immunology, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Correspondence:
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Yang J, Xu Y, Xie K, Gao L, Zhong W, Liu X. CEBPB is associated with active tumor immune environment and favorable prognosis of metastatic skin cutaneous melanoma. Front Immunol 2022; 13:991797. [PMID: 36353635 PMCID: PMC9637891 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.991797] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2022] [Accepted: 10/03/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Metastatic skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) is a common malignancy that accounts for low morbidity but high mortality of skin cancer. SKCM is characterized by high lymphocytic infiltration, whereas the states of infiltrated cells are variable in patients leading to a heterogeneous prognosis and hindering appropriate clinical decisions. It is therefore urgent to identify markers associated with lymphocytic infiltration, cellular conditions, and the prognosis of SKCM. In this study, we report that CEBPB, a transcriptional factor, is mainly expressed in macrophages in metastatic SKCM and associated with an active tumor immune environment and a favorable prognosis through integrated analysis of single-cell and bulk RNA-seq datasets. High CEBPB expression is significantly associated with active inflammation and immune response pathways in both macrophages and bulk SKCM tumor tissues. A signature based on CEBPB-associated genes that are specifically expressed in macrophages could robustly and prognostically separate different metastatic SKCM patients. In addition, the associations between the metastatic SKCM tumor signature and microenvironment with respect to T-cell recruitment and state, inflammation response, angiogenesis, and so on were also determined. In conclusion, we present here the first report on CEBPB in tumor immune environment and prognosis regulation in metastatic SKCM and construct a reliable signature, which should provide a useful biomarker for stratification of the patient's prognosis and therapeutic selection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jingrun Yang
- Department of General Surgery, The First Medical Center of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital, Beijing, China
- Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Materials and Interfacial Science, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yang Xu
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Kuixia Xie
- Department of Dermatology, The Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Ling Gao
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Wenying Zhong
- Department of Dermatology, The Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Xinhua Liu
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Aging and Cancer Biology of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
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