Endothelial Poldip2 regulates sepsis-induced lung injury via Rho pathway activation

Elena V. Dolmatova, Steven J. Forrester, Keke Wang, Ziwei Ou, Holly C. Williams, Giji Joseph, Sandeep Kumar, Alejandra Valdivia, Andrew P. Kowalczyk, Hongyan Qu, Hanjoong Jo, Bernard Lassègue, Marina S. Hernandes, Kathy K. Griendling

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Aims: Sepsis-induced lung injury is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Previously, we showed that heterozygous deletion of polymerase d-interacting protein 2 (Poldip2) was protective against sepsis-induced lung injury. Since endothelial barrier disruption is thought to be the main mechanism of sepsis-induced lung injury, we sought to determine if the observed protection was specifically due to the effect of reduced endothelial Poldip2. Methods and results: Endothelial-specific Poldip2 knock-out mice (EC-/-) and their wild-type littermates (EC+/+) were injected with saline or lipopolysaccharide (18 mg/kg) to model sepsis-induced lung injury. At 18 h post-injection mice, were euthanized and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and lung tissue were collected to assess leucocyte infiltration. Poldip2 EC-/- mice showed reduced lung leucocyte infiltration in BAL (0.21 ± 0.9×106 vs. 1.29 ± 1.8×106 cells/mL) and lung tissue (12.7 ± 1.8 vs. 23 ± 3.7% neutrophils of total number of cells) compared to Poldip2 EC+/+ mice. qPCR analysis of the lung tissue revealed a significantly dampened induction of inflammatory gene expression (TNFa 2.23 ± 0.39 vs. 4.15 ± 0.5-fold, I?Ba 4.32 ± 1.53 vs. 8.97 ± 1.59-fold), neutrophil chemoattractant gene expression (CXCL1 68.8 ± 29.6 vs. 147 ± 25.7-fold, CXCL2 65 ± 25.6 vs. 215 ± 27.3-fold) and a marker of endothelial activation (VCAM1 1.25 ± 0.25 vs. 3.8 ± 0.38-fold) in Poldip2 EC-/- compared to Poldip2 EC+/+ lungs. An in vitro model using human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells was used to assess the effect of Poldip2 knock-down on endothelial activation and permeability. TNFa-induced endothelial permeability and VE-cadherin disruption were significantly reduced with siRNA-mediated knock-down of Poldip2 (5 ± 0.5 vs. 17.5 ± 3-fold for permeability, 1.5 ± 0.4 vs. 10.9 ± 1.3-fold for proportion of disrupted VE-cadherin). Poldip2 knock-down altered expression of Rho-GTPase-related genes, which correlated with reduced RhoA activation by TNFa (0.94 ± 0.05 vs. 1.29 ± 0.01 of relative RhoA activity) accompanied by redistribution of active-RhoA staining to the centre of the cell. Conclusion: Poldip2 is a potent regulator of endothelial dysfunction during sepsis-induced lung injury, and its endothelium-specific inhibition may provide clinical benefit.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2506-2518
Number of pages13
JournalCardiovascular Research
Volume118
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2022

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Medicine

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