PTX3 shapes profibrotic immune cells and epithelial/fibroblast repair and regeneration in a murine model of pulmonary fibrosis

Abstract

The long pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is protective in different pathologies but was not analyzed in-depth in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Here, we have explored the influence of PTX3 in the bleomycin (BLM)-induced murine model of IPF by looking at immune cells (macrophages, mast cells, T cells) and stemness/regenerative markers of lung epithelium (SOX2) and fibro-blasts/myofibroblasts (CD44) at different time points that retrace the progression of the disease from onset at day 14, to full-blown disease at day 21, to incomplete regression at day 28. We took advantage of transgenic PTX3 overexpressing mice (Tie2-PTX3) and Ptx3 null ones (PTX3-KO) in which pulmonary fibrosis was induced. Our data have shown that PTX3 overexpression in Tie2-PTX3 compared to WT or PTX3-KO: reduced CD68⁺ and CD163⁺ macrophages and the Tryptase⁺ mast cells during the whole experimental time; on the contrary, CD4⁺ T cells are consistently present on day 14 and dramatically decreased on day 21; CD8⁺ T cells do not show significant differences on day 14, but are significantly reduced on day 21; SOX2 is reduced on days 14 and 21; CD44 is reduced on day 21. Therefore, PTX3 could act on the proimmune and fibrogenic microenvironment to prevent fibrosis in BLM-treated mice.

Keywords: CD44; Immune cells; Long pentraxin-3; Macrophages; Mast cells; Pulmonary fibrosis; Regeneration; SOX2; T cells.