| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China;2. Department of Pathophysiology, School of Basic Medicine, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China;3. Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases, Ministry of Health of China, Wuhan 430030, China;4. Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100020, China |
| Abstract: | Pleural fibrosis is barely reversible and the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Pleural mesothelial cells (PMCs) which have apical-basal polarity play a key role in pleural fibrosis. Loss of cell polarity is involved in the development of fibrotic diseases. Partition defective protein (PAR) complex is a key regulator of cell polarity. However, changes of PMC polarity and PAR complex in pleural fibrosis are still unknown. In this study, we observed that PMC polarity was lost in fibrotic pleura. Next we found increased Lethal (2) giant larvae (Lgl) bound with aPKC and PAR-6B competing against PAR-3A in PAR complex, which led to cell polarity loss. Then we demonstrated that Lgl1 siRNA prevented cell polarity loss in PMCs, and Lgl1 conditional knockout (ER-Cre+/?Lgl1flox/flox) attenuated pleural fibrosis in a mouse model. Our data indicated that Lgl1 regulates cell polarity of PMCs, inhibition of Lgl1 and maintenance of cell polarity in PMCs could be a potential therapeutic treatment approach for pleural fibrosis. |
