Caspase‐Dependent Septic Pulmonary Microvascular Endothelial Cell Barrier Dysfunction is Associated with Vascular Endothelial‐Cadherin Disruption
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Sepsis often causes dysfunction of pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (PMVEC) leading to severe pulmonary edema. We previously reported in a murine model of sepsis that lung injury, including PMVEC barrier dysfunction, was strongly caspase‐dependent, and associated with PMVEC apoptosis. The mechanism through which caspases mediate PMVEC barrier function, however, was not determined. The classic role of caspases is the initiation and execution of apoptosis; however, caspases have important biological functions other than apoptosis. Indeed, caspases can cleave multiple targets, including proteins associated with cell‐cell junctions. Objective To identify the mechanisms through which caspases regulate septic PMVEC barrier dysfunction. Hypothesis PMVEC barrier dysfunction in sepsis is mediated by caspase‐dependent disruption of inter‐PMVEC junctions. Methods Human PMVEC cultured alone or in co‐culture with neutrophils (PMN) were stimulated with cytomix (equimolar tumour necrosis factor α, interleukin 1β and interferon γ to mimic septic conditions). PMVEC barrier function was assessed by flux of Evans blue labelled‐albumin in a transwell assay. Specific microscopic localization of leak was determined by imaging paracellular fluorescein isothiocyanate labelled‐avidin leak across PMVEC monolayers in biotin‐coated wells. PMVEC apoptosis was examined using 3 markers: caspase activation (FLICA staining), loss of cell membrane polarity (Annexin V staining), and DNA fragmentation (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labelling [TUNEL] staining). PMVEC cell‐cell junctions were examined using immunofluorescence with antibodies against vascular endothelial (VE)‐cadherin. Results We found that co‐culture of PMVEC with PMN significantly disrupts PMVEC barrier function under both basal and septic conditions vs. PMVEC cultured alone. Compared to cytomix‐treated PMVEC alone, the presence of PMN also significantly enhanced septic PMVEC caspase activation (FLICA staining), but this increase did not appear to be associated with any change in PMVEC apoptosis (Annexin V or TUNEL staining) vs. PMVEC cultured alone. We also found that microscopic paracellular leak co‐localized around cells positive for caspase activity, and was highly associated with disruption of circumferential PMVEC surface VE‐cadherin staining (97.1%). Moreover, PMVEC treatment with Q‐VD, a pan‐caspase inhibitor, rescued the septic barrier dysfunction, microscopic leak, and VE‐cadherin disruption. Conclusion Our data demonstrates that neutrophil presence enhances caspase‐dependent septic PMVEC barrier dysfunction independently of PMVEC apoptosis partly through disruption of VE‐cadherin. Support or Funding Information This work was supported by research funding from the Ontario Thoracic Society (S. Gill), the Program of Experimental Medicine (S. Gill and S. Mehta), and the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario/Canada grants #G‐16‐00014621 (S. Mehta and S. Gill). This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".