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Pathological matrix stiffness promotes cardiac fibroblast differentiation through the POU2F1 signaling pathway

Science China Life Sciences volume 64, pages 242–254 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Cardiac fibroblast (CF) differentiation into myofibroblasts is a crucial cause of cardiac fibrosis, which increases in the extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffness. The increased stiffness further promotes CF differentiation and fibrosis. However, the molecular mechanism is still unclear. We used bioinformatics analysis to find new candidates that regulate the genes involved in stiffness-induced CF differentiation, and found that there were binding sites for the POU-domain transcription factor, POU2F1 (also known as Oct-1), in the promoters of 50 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in CFs on the stiffer substrate. Immunofluorescent staining and Western blotting revealed that pathological stiffness upregulated POU2F1 expression and increased CF differentiation on polyacrylamide hydrogel substrates and in mouse myocardial infarction tissue. A chromatin immunoprecipitation assay showed that POU2F1 bound to the promoters of fibrosis repressors IL1R2, CD69, and TGIF2. The expression of these fibrosis repressors was inhibited on pathological substrate stiffness. Knockdown of POU2F1 upregulated these repressors and attenuated CF differentiation on pathological substrate stiffness (35 kPa). Whereas, overexpression of POU2F1 downregulated these repressors and enhanced CF differentiation. In conclusion, pathological stiffness upregulates the transcription factor POU2F1 to promote CF differentiation by inhibiting fibrosis repressors. Our work elucidated the crosstalk between CF differentiation and the ECM and provided a potential target for cardiac fibrosis treatment.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81530009 to Y.Y.Z.), a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81822003 and 81670205 to H.X.) and a grant from Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality (7191013 to E.D.D.).

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  1. Department of Cardiology and Institute of Vascular Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital; NHC Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Molecular Biology and Regulatory Peptides; Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiovascular Science, Ministry of Education; Beijing Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Receptors Research, Beijing, 100191, China

    Mingzhe Li, Jimin Wu, Guomin Hu, Yao Song, Jing Shen, Junzhou Xin, Zijian Li, Erdan Dong, Ming Xu, Youyi Zhang & Han Xiao

  2. Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, Faculty of Biology Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK

    Wei Liu

  3. Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, Health Science Center, Peking University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Erdan Dong

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  1. Mingzhe Li
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Li, M., Wu, J., Hu, G. et al. Pathological matrix stiffness promotes cardiac fibroblast differentiation through the POU2F1 signaling pathway. Sci. China Life Sci. 64, 242–254 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-019-1747-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-019-1747-y

  • fibroblast differentiation
  • matrix stiffness
  • POU2F1
  • cardiac fibrosis
  • transcription factor