Nutrition & Food Science
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Item Role of Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) Calcium-permeable Channels in Fibro-inflammatory Diseases(2021) Goswami, Rishov; Rahaman, Shaik O.; Nutrition; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Tissue fibrosis and foreign body response (FBR) have emerged as two major public health problems globally over the last few decades. While fibrosis is an outcome of a dysregulated wound healing process, FBR, a chronic inflammatory disease, develops when the body responds and reacts to the implantation of biological materials. Interestingly, recent studies have associated these non-specific inflammatory diseases with altering stiffness although the exact underlying mechanisms by which mechanical cues can regulate the diseases remain poorly understood. The objective of this thesis work is to determine how the changing of tissue stiffness and implant rigidity mediates disease progression of fibrosis and FBR respectively. Here we identify a novel role of a polymodal mechanosensitive calcium channel, Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), as a potential cell membrane receptor/channel in the pathophysiology of FBR and skin fibrosis associated with Scleroderma, a multisystem idiopathic fibro-inflammatory connective tissue disorder. Our results showed that TRPV4 is over expressed in fibrotic skin tissue and colocalize with alpha-smooth muscle actin (a-SMA), a common myofibroblast marker. Using mouse model, we demonstrated that TRPV4 knockout mice are protected from bleomycin-induced skin fibrosis development. Additionally, in a separate mouse model, we showed that genetic ablation of the TRPV4 channel protects mice from implantation-induced macrophage foreign body giant cell (FBGC) formation, macrophage accumulation, and FBR development to biomaterials. The results of our studies also determined an essential role of TRPV4 for macrophage fusion and the mechanism by which TRPV4 and matrix stiffness leads to cytoskeletal remodeling through a feed-forward functional interaction generating cellular force to modulate FBGC formation. We also identified a mechanosensing domain of TRPV4 which is crucial for FBGC generation. Altogether, the results presented in this thesis suggest TRPV4 as a potential regulator of stiffness-dependent fibrosis and inflammation development, and multinucleated FBGC formation. The results of this thesis work proposes that interaction between TRPV4 and substrate stiffness leads to cytoskeletal remodeling and cellular force generation to modulate FBGC formation under FBR. Overall, the work presented in this thesis provides a better understanding about the role of mechanosensitive calcium channel TRPV4 in the regulation of fibro-inflammatory diseases and highlights the possibilities of therapeutically targeting of this channel for disease management.Item Identification and functional analysis of a biflavone as a novel inhibitor of TRPV4-dependent atherogenic process in macrophages(2021) Alharbi, Mazen Obaid; Rahaman, Shaik O.; Nutrition; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death throughout the world. Atherosclerosis, a chronic inflammatory disease of large arteries, is the major contributor to the growing burden of cardiovascular disease-related mortality and morbidity throughout the world. During early atherogenesis, as a result of inflammation and endothelial dysfunction, monocytes transmigrate into the aortic intimal areas, and differentiate into lipid-laden macrophage foam cells, a critical process in atherosclerosis. Numerous natural compounds such as flavonoids and polyphenols are known to have anti-inflammatory and anti-atherogenic properties. Transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), a non-selective Ca2+-permeant ion channel and a mechanosensor, is widely expressed in diverse cell types including macrophages. Accumulating reports from our laboratory and others on TRPV4 recognized this plasma membrane receptor/channel as an essential modulator of various physiological functions in cardiac, pulmonary, urinary, skeletal, digestive system, and central and peripheral nervous systems. Thus, it is expected that aberrant regulation of TRPV4 activity may lead to multiple pathological conditions such as cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, inflammation, neurological disorders, inflammatory bowel disease and wound healing. Previous studies by our group and others have reported that TRPV4 can be activated by numerous mechanical and biochemical stimuli including shear stress, osmolarity, temperature, and growth factors, as well as by alterations in matrix stiffness in vitro and in vivo. Recently, we reported that oxidized low-density lipoprotein-mediated and matrix stiffness-induced macrophage foam cell formation, a critical pathological process in atherosclerosis, is regulated in a TRPV4-dependent manner. Given that TRPV4 is a mechanosensitive channels and mechanical factors like hypertension, disrupted laminar flow of blood, and matrix stiffening are recognized pro-atherogenic factors, makes TRPV4 an important target for therapeutic intervention of atherosclerosis. The objectives of this proposal is to: i) identify natural inhibitor (s) of TRPV4 utilizing a fluorometric imaging plate reader-supported Ca2+ influx assay, ii) functionally characterize the identified compound, and iii) determine the mechanisms by which the identified compound blocks pro-atherogenic/inflammatory TRPV4 activity in macrophages. We expect that the results of this study may strengthen the rationale for the use of natural compounds for developing therapeutic and/or chemopreventive molecules.Item THE ROLE OF ESE-1 IN NON-SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER (NSCLC) CELLS(2020) Lou, Zhiyuan; Lee, Seong-Ho; Nutrition; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Lung cancer is the most life-threatening cancer in the world. The identification of the effective molecular target is essential for lung cancer prevention and therapy. Epithelial Specific ETS-1 (ESE-1) is a transcription factor associated with several types of cancer. However, the significance of ESE-1 in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains unclear. The objective of this dissertation was to investigate if ESE-1 expression influences the tumorigenic and metastatic activity of human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to explore the mechanisms associated with tumorigenesis and epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT). Overexpression of ESE-1 repressed the anchorage-independent growth of human NSCLC cells (H1299 and H1703) and led to an increase of G1 arrest and apoptosis, additionally, to repress invasion and migration. Xenograft study indicated that ESE-1 expression inhibited the formation and development of the tumor. In terms of mechanistic studies, overexpression of ESE-1 downregulates NF-κB transcriptional activity in both H1299 and H1703 cells. The downregulation might be associated with inhibition of NF-κB-p65 phosphorylation. ESE-1 is a downstream target of TGF-β-stimulated EMT. Downregulation of ESE-1 by TGF-β is dependent on Smad2/3, but not on Smad4 and other alternative pathways, including ERK, p38 MAPK, JNK, RAS, GSK3, PI3K, NF-ĸB, CDC42, PKC, and Rock signaling. We identified two putative Smad responsive elements (SRE) in the ESE-1 promoter. After cloning internal deletion and point mutated clones lacking distal and proximal SRE, which were localized at the distal and proximal regions of the ESE-1 promoter between -1500 to -713, the double mutation responsible for ESE-1 transcriptional downregulation with TGF-β induction. Moreover, EMT downstream target Snail reciprocally interacts with ESE-1. Our findings indicate that ESE-1 serves as a tumor repressor in ESE-1-null NSCLC cells, and we propose a potential use of ESE-1 as a target of lung cancer chemoprevention.Item TRPV4, A CALCIUM-PERMEABLE CHANNEL, PLAYS A ROLE IN MATRIX STIFFNESS INDUCED MACROPHAGE POLARIZATION(2020) Dutta, Bidisha; Rahaman, Shaik Ohidar; Nutrition; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Phenotypic polarization of macrophages is deemed essential in innate immunity and various pathophysiological processes, but little is known about how mechanical forces like matrix stiffness regulate the polarization and the associated signaling mechanisms. Here we report that calcium ion channel Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), a mechanosensitive receptor/channel, mediates the substrate stiffness-induced macrophage polarization. Using atomic force microscopy, we show that fibrosis-induced tissue stiffness is dependent on TRPV4. M1 macrophages were found to be the predominant macrophage subtype in stiffer tissues and loss of TRPV4 significantly decreased the level of M1 macrophages. These findings were further validated by our in vitro assays indicating that increase in substrate stiffness leads to an increased secretion of M1 proinflammatory mediators, which is further enhanced by the addition of soluble factors. Taken together, these findings provide new insights about the role of TRPV4 in matrix stiffness-induced macrophage polarization that can be explored in tissue engineering and in the development of targeted therapeutics.