ORCID Profile
0000-0002-9202-1428
Current Organisations
The University of Edinburgh
,
Harvard University
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Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 07-12-2022
DOI: 10.1126/SCITRANSLMED.ABJ4375
Abstract: Liver transplantation is the only curative option for patients with end-stage liver disease. Despite improvements in surgical techniques, nonanastomotic strictures (characterized by the progressive loss of biliary tract architecture) continue to occur after liver transplantation, negatively affecting liver function and frequently leading to graft loss and retransplantation. To study the biological effects of organ preservation before liver transplantation, we generated murine models that recapitulate liver procurement and static cold storage. In these models, we explored the response of cholangiocytes and hepatocytes to cold storage, focusing on responses that affect liver regeneration, including DNA damage, apoptosis, and cellular senescence. We show that biliary senescence was induced during organ retrieval and exacerbated during static cold storage, resulting in impaired biliary regeneration. We identified decoy receptor 2 (DCR2)–dependent responses in cholangiocytes and hepatocytes, which differentially affected the outcome of those populations during cold storage. Moreover, CRISPR-mediated DCR2 knockdown in vitro increased cholangiocyte proliferation and decreased cellular senescence but had the opposite effect in hepatocytes. Using the p21 KO model to inhibit senescence onset, we showed that biliary tract architecture was better preserved during cold storage. Similar results were achieved by administering senolytic ABT737 to mice before procurement. Last, we perfused senolytics into discarded human donor livers and showed that biliary architecture and regenerative capacities were better preserved. Our results indicate that cholangiocytes are susceptible to senescence and identify the use of senolytics and the combination of senotherapies and machine-perfusion preservation to prevent this phenotype and reduce the incidence of biliary injury after transplantation.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 09-06-2017
Abstract: Infection, especially by helminths or bacteria, can cause tissue damage (see the Perspective by Bouchery and Harris). Minutti et al. studied mouse models of helminth infection and fibrosis. They expressed surfactant protein A (a member of the complement component C1q family) in the lung, which enhanced interleukin-4 (IL-4)-mediated proliferation and activation of alveolar macrophages. This activation accelerated helminth clearance and reduced lung injury. In the peritoneum, C1q boosted macrophage activation for liver repair after bacterial infection. By a different approach, Bosurgi et al. discovered that after wounding caused by migrating helminths in the lung or during inflammation in the gut of mice, IL-4 and IL-13 act only in the presence of apoptotic cells to promote tissue repair by local macrophages. Science , this issue p. 1076 , p. 1072 see also p. 1014
Publisher: American Diabetes Association
Date: 22-03-2011
DOI: 10.2337/DB10-0830
Abstract: The study objective was to determine the key early mechanisms underlying the beneficial redistribution, function, and inflammatory profile of adipose tissue in 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 knockout (11β-HSD1−/−) mice fed a high-fat (HF) diet. By focusing on the earliest ergence in visceral adiposity, subcutaneous and visceral fat depots from 11β-HSD1−/− and C57Bl/6J control mice fed an HF diet for 4 weeks were used for comparative microarray analysis of gene expression, and differences were validated with real-time PCR. Key changes in metabolic signaling pathways were confirmed using Western blotting/immunoprecipitation, and fat cell size was compared with the respective chow-fed control groups. Altered adipose inflammatory cell content and function after 4 weeks (early) and 18 weeks (chronic) of HF feeding was investigated using fluorescence (and magnetic)-activated cell sorting analysis, immunohistochemistry, and in situ hybridization. In subcutaneous fat, HF-fed 11β-HSD1−/− mice showed evidence of enhanced insulin and β-adrenergic signaling associated with accretion of smaller metabolically active adipocytes. In contrast, reduced 11β-HSD1−/− visceral fat accumulation was characterized by maintained AMP kinase activation, not insulin sensitization, and higher adipocyte interleukin-6 release. Intracellular glucocorticoid deficiency was unexpectedly associated with suppressed inflammatory signaling and lower adipocyte monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 secretion with strikingly reduced cytotoxic T-cell and macrophage infiltration, predominantly in visceral fat. Our data define for the first time the novel and distinct depot-specific mechanisms driving healthier fat patterning and function as a result of reduced intra-adipose glucocorticoid levels.
Publisher: American Society for Clinical Investigation
Date: 22-11-2022
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 19-05-2021
DOI: 10.1126/SCITRANSLMED.ABB0203
Abstract: The ability of the kidney to regenerate successfully after injury is lost with advancing age, chronic kidney disease, and after irradiation. The factors responsible for this reduced regenerative capacity remain incompletely understood, with increasing interest in a potential role for cellular senescence in determining outcomes after injury. Here, we demonstrated correlations between senescent cell load and functional loss in human aging and chronic kidney diseases including radiation nephropathy. We dissected the causative role of senescence in the augmented fibrosis occurring after injury in aged and irradiated murine kidneys. In vitro studies on human proximal tubular epithelial cells and in vivo mouse studies demonstrated that senescent renal epithelial cells produced multiple components of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype including transforming growth factor β1, induced fibrosis, and inhibited tubular proliferative capacity after injury. Treatment of aged and irradiated mice with the B cell lymphoma 2/w/xL inhibitor ABT-263 reduced senescent cell numbers and restored a regenerative phenotype in the kidneys with increased tubular proliferation, improved function, and reduced fibrosis after subsequent ischemia-reperfusion injury. Senescent cells are key determinants of renal regenerative capacity in mice and represent emerging treatment targets to protect aging and vulnerable kidneys in man.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 31-05-2023
DOI: 10.1126/SCITRANSLMED.ABN0736
Abstract: Progressive fibrosis is a feature of aging and chronic tissue injury in multiple organs, including the kidney and heart. Glioma-associated oncogene 1 expressing (Gli1 + ) cells are a major source of activated fibroblasts in multiple organs, but the links between injury, inflammation, and Gli1 + cell expansion and tissue fibrosis remain incompletely understood. We demonstrated that leukocyte-derived tumor necrosis factor (TNF) promoted Gli1 + cell proliferation and cardiorenal fibrosis through induction and release of Indian Hedgehog (IHH) from renal epithelial cells. Using single-cell–resolution transcriptomic analysis, we identified an “inflammatory” proximal tubular epithelial (iPT) population contributing to TNF- and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB)–induced IHH production in vivo. TNF-induced Ubiquitin D ( Ubd ) expression was observed in human proximal tubular cells in vitro and during murine and human renal disease and aging. Studies using pharmacological and conditional genetic ablation of TNF-induced IHH signaling revealed that IHH activated canonical Hedgehog signaling in Gli1 + cells, which led to their activation, proliferation, and fibrosis within the injured and aging kidney and heart. These changes were inhibited in mice by Ihh deletion in Pax8 -expressing cells or by pharmacological blockade of TNF, NF-κB, or Gli1 signaling. Increased amounts of circulating IHH were associated with loss of renal function and higher rates of cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic kidney disease. Thus, IHH connects leukocyte activation to Gli1 + cell expansion and represents a potential target for therapies to inhibit inflammation-induced fibrosis.
Publisher: Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Date: 25-09-2020
Abstract: The innate immune system is central to injury and repair in the kidney, but the heterogeneity of myeloid cell subsets behind these processes is unknown. Complementary technologies—including bulk tissue transcriptomics, integrated droplet– and plate-based single-cell RNA sequencing, and paired blood exchange—resolved myeloid cell heterogeneity in a murine model of reversible unilateral ureteric obstruction, creating a single-cell atlas. The identified novel myeloid subsets could be targeted to ameliorate injury or enhance repair, including an Arg1+ monocyte subset present during injury and Mmp12+ macrophages present during repair. Standard flow cytometry to detect cell surface markers would have missed these subsets. Complementary techniques capture the complexity and dynamics of monocyte, dendritic cell, and macrophage phenotypes in the injured and repairing kidney. Little is known about the roles of myeloid cell subsets in kidney injury and in the limited ability of the organ to repair itself. Characterizing these cells based only on surface markers using flow cytometry might not provide a full phenotypic picture. Defining these cells at the single-cell, transcriptomic level could reveal myeloid heterogeneity in the progression and regression of kidney disease. Integrated droplet– and plate-based single-cell RNA sequencing were used in the murine, reversible, unilateral ureteric obstruction model to dissect the transcriptomic landscape at the single-cell level during renal injury and the resolution of fibrosis. Paired blood exchange tracked the fate of monocytes recruited to the injured kidney. A single-cell atlas of the kidney generated using transcriptomics revealed marked changes in the proportion and gene expression of renal cell types during injury and repair. Conventional flow cytometry markers would not have identified the 12 myeloid cell subsets. Monocytes recruited to the kidney early after injury rapidly adopt a proinflammatory, profibrotic phenotype that expresses Arg1 , before transitioning to become Ccr2 + macrophages that accumulate in late injury. Conversely, a novel Mmp12 + macrophage subset acts during repair. Complementary technologies identified novel myeloid subtypes, based on transcriptomics in single cells, that represent therapeutic targets to inhibit progression or promote regression of kidney disease.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Start Date: 2018
End Date: 2021
Funder: Kidney Research UK
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