Inducing Apical Periodontitis in Mice

The mechanisms involved in local induced inflammation can be studied using several available animal models. One of these is the induction of apical ...

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The progressive nature of osteoarthritis is manifested by the dynamic increase of degenerated articular cartilage, which is one of the major characteristics of this debilitating disease. As articular chondrocytes become exposed to inflammatory stress they enter a pro-catabolic state, which leads to the secretion and activation of a plethora of proteases. In aim to detect the disease before massive areas of cartilage are destroyed, various protein and non-protein biomarkers have been examined in bodily fluids and correlated with disease severity. This review will discuss the widely research extracellular degraded products as well as products generated by affected cellular pathways upon increased protease activity. While extracellular components could be more abundant, cleaved cellular proteins are less abundant and are suggested to possess a significant effect on cell metabolism and cartilage secretome. Subtle changes in cell secretome could potentially act as indicators of the chondrocyte metabolic and biological state. Therefore, it is envisioned that combined biomarkers composed of both cell and extracellular-degraded secretome could provide a valuable platform for testing drug efficacy to halt disease progression at its early stages. 

Chopping off the chondrocyte proteome.

Lysosomal cathepsins have been reported to contribute to Osteoarthritis (OA) pathophysiology due to their increase in pro-inflammatory conditions. Given the causal role of cathepsins in OA, monitoring their specific activity could provide means for assessing OA severity. To this end, we herein sought to assess a cathepsin activity-based probe (ABP), GB123, in vitro and in vivo.

Detecting cathepsin activity in human osteoarthritis via activity-based probes.

Changes in the content of aggrecan, an essential proteoglycan of articular cartilage, have been implicated in the pathophysiology of osteoarthritis (OA), a prevalent age-related, degenerative joint disease. Here, we examined the effect of SOX9 acetylation on ACAN transactivation in the context of osteoarthritis. Primary chondrocytes freshly isolated from degenerated OA cartilage displayed lower levels of ACAN mRNA and higher levels of acetylated SOX9 compared with cells from intact regions of OA cartilage. Degenerated OA cartilage presented chondrocyte clusters bearing diffused immunostaining for SOX9 compared with intact cartilage regions. Primary human chondrocytes freshly isolated from OA knee joints were cultured in monolayer or in three-dimensional alginate microbeads (3D). SOX9 was hypo-acetylated in 3D cultures and displayed enhanced binding to a -10 kb ACAN enhancer, a result consistent with higher ACAN mRNA levels than in monolayer cultures. It also co-immunoprecipitated with SIRT1, a major deacetylase responsible for SOX9 deacetylation. Finally, immunofluorescence assays revealed increased nuclear localization of SOX9 in primary chondrocytes treated with the NAD SIRT1 cofactor, than in cells treated with a SIRT1 inhibitor. Inhibition of importin β by importazole maintained SOX9 in the cytoplasm, even in the presence of NAD. Based on these data, we conclude that deacetylation promotes SOX9 nuclear translocation and hence its ability to activate ACAN.

Acetylation reduces SOX9 nuclear entry and ACAN gene transactivation in human chondrocytes.

Reduced SIRT1 activity and levels during osteoarthritis (OA) promote gradual loss of cartilage. Loss of cartilage matrix is accompanied by an increase in matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 13, partially because of enhanced LEF1 transcriptional activity. In this study, we assessed the role of SIRT1 in LEF1-mediated MMP13 gene expression in human OA chondrocytes. Results showed that MMP13 protein levels and enzymatic activity decreased significantly during SIRT1 overexpression or activation by resveratrol. Conversely, MMP13 gene expression was reduced in chondrocytes transfected with SIRT1 siRNA or treated with nicotinamide (NAM), a sirtuin inhibitor. Chondrocytes challenged with IL-1β, a cytokine involved in OA pathogenesis, enhanced LEF1 protein levels and gene expression, resulting in increased MMP13 gene expression; however, overexpression of SIRT1 during IL-1β challenge impeded LEF1 levels and MMP13 gene expression. Previous reports showed that LEF1 binds to the MMP13 promoter and transactivates its expression, but we observed that SIRT1 repressed LEF1 protein and mRNA expression, ultimately reducing LEF1 transcriptional activity, as judged by luciferase assay. Finally, mouse articular cartilage from Sirt1 presented increased LEF1 and MMP13 protein levels, similar to human OA cartilage. Thus, demonstrating for the first time that SIRT1 represses MMP13 in human OA chondrocytes, which appears to be mediated, at least in part, through repression of the transcription factor LEF1, a known modulator of MMP13 gene expression.-Elayyan, J., Lee, E.-J., Gabay, O., Smith, C. A., Qiq, O., Reich, E., Mobasheri, A., Henrotin, Y., Kimber, S. J., Dvir-Ginzberg, M. LEF1-mediated MMP13 gene expression is repressed by SIRT1 in human chondrocytes.

LEF1-mediated MMP13 gene expression is repressed by SIRT1 in human chondrocytes.

The C-terminus of SIRT1 can be cleaved by cathepsin B at amino acid H533 to generate a lower-functioning, N-terminally intact 75 kDa polypeptide (75SIRT1) that might be involved in age-related pathologies. However, the mechanisms underlying cathepsin B docking to and cleavage of SIRT1 are unclear. Here, we first identified several 75SIRT1 variants that are augmented with aging correlatively with increased cathepsin B levels in various mouse tissues, highlighting the possible role of this cleavage event in age-related pathologies. Then, based on H533 point mutation and structural modeling, we generated a functionally intact ΔSIRT1 mutant, lacking the internal amino acids 528-543 (a predicted C-terminus loop domain), which exhibits resistance to cathepsin B cleavage  and in cell cultures. Finally, we showed that cells expressing ΔSIRT1 under pro-inflammatory stress are more likely to undergo caspase 9- dependent apoptosis than those expressing 75SIRT1. Thus, our data suggest that the 15-amino acid predicted loop motif embedded in the C-terminus of SIRT1 is susceptible to proteolytic cleavage by cathepsin B, leading to the formation of several N-terminally intact SIRT1 truncated variants in various aging mouse tissues.This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.

A predicted unstructured C-terminal loop domain in SIRT1 is required for cathepsin B cleavage.

Ancient fermented food has been studied based on recipes, residue analysis, and ancient-DNA techniques and reconstructed using modern domesticated yeast. Here, we present a novel approach based on our hypothesis that enriched yeast populations in fermented beverages could have become the dominant species in storage vessels and their descendants could be isolated and studied today. We developed a pipeline of yeast isolation from clay vessels and screened for yeast cells in beverage-related and non-beverage-related ancient vessels and sediments from several archaeological sites. We found that yeast cells could be successfully isolated specifically from clay containers of fermented beverages. The findings that genotypically the isolated yeasts are similar to those found in traditional African beverages and phenotypically they grow similar to modern beer-producing yeast strongly suggest that they are descendants of the original fermenting yeast. These results demonstrate that modern microorganisms can serve as a new tool in bio-archaeology research. So far, most of the study of ancient organisms has been based mainly on the analysis of ancient DNA. Here we show that it is possible to isolate and study microorganisms-yeast in this case-from ancient pottery vessels used for fermentation. We demonstrate that it is highly likely that these cells are descendants of the original yeast strains that participated in the fermentation process and were absorbed into the clay matrix of the pottery vessels. Moreover, we characterized the isolated yeast strains, their genomes, and the beer they produced. These results open new and exciting avenues in the study of domesticated microorganisms and contribute significantly to the fields of bio- and experimental archaeology that aim to reconstruct ancient artifacts and products.

Eli Reich

Institute of Dental Sciences,
Faculty of Dental Medicine,
Institute of Dental Sciences, Faculty of Dental Medicine

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Inducing Apical Periodontitis in Mice

Eli Reich

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Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Inducing Apical Periodontitis in Mice

Institute of Dental Sciences,
Faculty of Dental Medicine,
Institute of Dental Sciences, Faculty of Dental Medicine