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Connective Tissue Growth Factor Promotes Pulmonary Epithelial Cell Senescence and Is Associated with COPD Severity
Journal article   Open access

Connective Tissue Growth Factor Promotes Pulmonary Epithelial Cell Senescence and Is Associated with COPD Severity

Jun-Ho Jang, Hitendra S Chand, Shannon Bruse, Melanie Doyle-Eisele, Christopher Royer, Jacob McDonald, Clifford Qualls, Aloysius J Klingelhutz, Yong Lin, Rama Mallampalli, …
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Vol.14(2), pp.228-237
03/30/2017
DOI: 10.1080/15412555.2016.1262340
PMCID: PMC5362315
PMID: 28026993
url
https://doi.org/10.1080/15412555.2016.1262340View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether expression of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) protein in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is consistent in humans and animal models of COPD and to investigate the role of this protein in lung epithelial cells. CTGF in lung epithelial cells of ex-smokers with COPD was compared with ex-smokers without COPD by immunofluorescence. A total of twenty C57Bl/6 mice and sixteen non-human primates (NHPs) were exposed to cigarette smoke (CS) for 4 weeks. Ten mice of these CS-exposed mice and eight of the CS-exposed NHPs were infected with H3N2 influenza A virus (IAV), while the remaining ten mice and eight NHPs were mock-infected with vehicle as control. Both mRNA and protein expression of CTGF in lung epithelial cells of mice and NHPs were determined. The effects of CTGF overexpression on cell proliferation, p16 protein, and senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) activity were examined in cultured human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs). In humans, CTGF expression increased with increasing COPD severity. We found that protein expression of CTGF was upregulated in lung epithelial cells in both mice and NHPs exposed to CS and infected with IAV compared to those exposed to CS only. When overexpressed in HBECs, CTGF accelerated cellular senescence accompanied by p16 accumulation. Both CTGF and p16 protein expression in lung epithelia are positively associated with the severity of COPD in ex-smokers. These findings show that CTGF is consistently expressed in epithelial cells of COPD lungs. By accelerating lung epithelial senescence, CTGF may block regeneration relative to epithelial cell loss and lead to emphysema.
alveolar epithelial cells connective tissue growth factor Airway epithelial cells cellular senescence cigarette smoke non-human primates

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