Recent work has identified the NALP3 inflammasome as a critical p

Recent work has identified the NALP3 inflammasome as a critical pathway in the generation of proinflammatory signals during liver injury. Moreover, IL-1 generated through this pathway exerts profibrogenic activities through the modulation of TIMP-1 and MMP9. Aim of this study was to evaluate the role of CCR5

in mediating inflammasome activation in response to gp120, in cells involved in liver tissue repair, including HSC. Myofibroblastic human HSCs were isolated from normal human liver tissue and cultured on plastic until fully activated. PBMC were separated from human whole blood. Gene expression was measured by qPCR. Protein IL-1 β protein levels were assayed by ELISA. HSCs or PBMC were exposed to 500 ng/ml recombinant M-tropic gp120 PS341 (CN54) for 2, 8 and 24 hours showed a time-dependent, significant up-regulation of pycard and NALP3, critical proteins for the assembly

of NALP3-dependent inflammasome, and of cas-pase-1 and IL-1 β. gp120 efficiently induced secretion of mature IL-1β, as shown by ELISA tests performed on the supernatants of both cell types. Notably, pre-incubation of HSCs with TAK779, a CCR5 receptor antagonist or with neutralizing α-CCR5 antibody reverted gp120-mediated IL-1 β production, indicating a primary role for this receptor in the activation of inflammasome Paclitaxel price complex. Interestingly, when HSC were stimulated with CCL5 (RANTES), a natural agonist of CCR5, we also found a significant up-regulation of IL-1 b, confirming that CCR5 may mediate activation of this inflammatory complex in HSC. In conclusion, HIV-gp1 20 significantly increases the expression of components of the NALP3 Avelestat (AZD9668) inflammasome pathway in human HSC and PBMC, through activation of CCR5. These data identify a novel mechanism by which HIV-gp1 20 may directly influence hepatic

necroinflammation and fibrosis during HCV/HIV coinfection, i.e. through increased production of IL-1 β. Moreover, these data establish for the first time a direct link between the inflammasome complex, HIV proteins and CCR5. We thank aid-sreagent.org for the kind gift of gp120. Disclosures: Fabio Marra – Advisory Committees or Review Panels: Abbott; Consulting: Bayer Healthcare, Gilead; Grant/Research Support: ViiV The following people have nothing to disclose: Andrea Cappon, Raffaele Bruno, Sandra Gessani, Andrea Masotti Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are involved in various processes such as modulation of inflammation, tissue remodeling and collagen turnover. MMP-8 plays a yet ill-defined role in liver fibrogenesis and fibrolysis. Thus, we investigated the role of MMP-8 in toxin-induced liver fibrosis and spontaneous fibrosis regression using MMP-8 knock-out mice. Six week old female MMP-8 KO mice (n=10/group,C57/BL6 background) were treated according to an optimized CCl4 and TAA fibrosis-induction protocol for 4 and 8 weeks. For fibrosis regression, mice were harvested 5 days, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks after discontinuation of toxin treatment.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>