Fibronectin has multifunctional roles in posterior capsular opacification (PCO) |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA;2. Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA;1. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, Yale University, 60 College Street, New Haven, CT, USA;2. Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA;3. Department of Pathology, Anschutz School of Medicine, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO, USA;4. Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO, USA |
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| Abstract: | Fibrotic posterior capsular opacification (PCO), one of the major complications of cataract surgery, occurs when lens epithelial cells (LCs) left behind post cataract surgery (PCS) undergo epithelial to mesenchymal transition, migrate into the optical axis and produce opaque scar tissue. LCs left behind PCS robustly produce fibronectin, although its roles in fibrotic PCO are not known. In order to determine the function of fibronectin in PCO pathogenesis, we created mice lacking the fibronectin gene (FN conditional knock out -FNcKO) from the lens. While animals from this line have normal lenses, upon lens fiber cell removal which models cataract surgery, FNcKO LCs exhibit a greatly attenuated fibrotic response from 3 days PCS onward as assessed by a reduction in surgery-induced cell proliferation, and fibrotic extracellular matrix (ECM) production and deposition. This is correlated with less upregulation of Transforming Growth Factor β (TGFβ) and integrin signaling in FNcKO LCs PCS concomitant with sustained Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling and elevation of the epithelial cell marker E cadherin. Although the initial fibrotic response of FNcKO LCs was qualitatively normal at 48 h PCS as measured by the upregulation of fibrotic marker protein αSMA, RNA sequencing revealed that the fibrotic response was already quantitatively attenuated at this time, as measured by the upregulation of mRNAs encoding molecules that control, and are controlled by, TGFβ signaling, including many known markers of fibrosis. Most notably, gremlin-1, a known regulator of TGFβ superfamily signaling, was upregulated sharply in WT LCs PCS, while this response was attenuated in FNcKO LCs. As exogenous administration of either active TGFβ1 or gremlin-1 to FNcKO lens capsular bags rescued the attenuated fibrotic response of fibronectin null LCs PCS including the loss of SMAD2/3 phosphorylation, this suggests that fibronectin plays multifunctional roles in fibrotic PCO development. |
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| Keywords: | Cataract surgery Posterior capsular opacification PCO Fibronectin TGFβ signaling Matrix assembly |
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