Significance of the Balance between Regulatory T (Treg) and T Helper 17 (Th17) Cells during Hepatitis B Virus Related Liver Fibrosis

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Hepatitis B virus-related liver fibrosis (HBV-LF) always progresses from inflammation to fibrosis. However, the relationship between these two pathological conditions is not fully understood. Here, it is postulated that the balance between regulatory T (Treg) cells and T helper 17 (Th17) cells as an indicator of inflammation may predict fibrosis progression of HBV-LF.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principal Findings</h3><p>The frequencies and phenotypes of peripheral Treg and Th17 cells of seventy-seven HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients who underwent liver biopsies and thirty healthy controls were determined by flow cytometry. In the periphery of CHB patients, both Treg and Th17 frequencies were significantly increased and correlated, and a lower Treg/Th17 ratio always indicated more liver injury and fibrosis progression. To investigate exact effects of Treg and Th17 cells during HBV-LF, a series of <em>in vitro</em> experiments were performed using purified CD4⁺, CD4⁺CD25⁺, or CD4⁺CD25⁻ cells from the periphery, primary human hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) isolated from healthy liver specimens, human recombinant interleukin (IL)-17 cytokine, anti-IL-17 antibody and HBcAg. In response to HBcAg, CD4⁺CD25⁺ cells significantly inhibited cell proliferation and cytokine production (especially IL-17 and IL-22) by CD4⁺CD25⁻ cells in cell-contact and dose-dependent manners. In addition, CD4⁺ cells from CHB patients, compared to those from HC subjects, dramatically promoted proliferation and activation of human HSCs. Moreover, in a dramatically dose-dependent manner, CD4⁺CD25⁺ cells from CHB patients inhibited, whereas recombinant IL-17 response promoted the proliferation and activation of HSCs. Finally, <em>in vivo</em> evidence about effects of Treg/Th17 balance during liver fibrosis was obtained in concanavalin A-induced mouse fibrosis models via depletion of CD25⁺ or IL-17⁺ cells, and it’s observed that CD25 depletion promoted, whereas IL-17 depletion, alleviated liver injury and fibrosis progression.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>The Treg/Th17 balance might influence fibrosis progression in HBV-LF via increase of liver injury and promotion of HSCs activation.</p> </div

Sfrp5 Modulates Both Wnt and BMP Signaling and Regulates Gastrointestinal Organogensis in the Zebrafish, Danio rerio

Sfrp5 belongs to the family of secreted frizzled related proteins (Sfrp), secreted inhibitors of Wingless-MMTV Integration Site (Wnt) signaling, which play an important role in cancer and development. We selected sfrp5 because of its compelling expression profile in the developing endoderm in zebrafish, Danio rerio. In this study, overexpression of sfrp5 in embryos results in defects in both convergent extension (CE) by inhibition of non-canonical Wnt signaling and defects in dorsoventral patterning by inhibition of Tolloid-mediated proteolysis of the BMP inhibitor Chordin. From 25 hours post fertilization (hpf) to 3 days post fertilization (dpf), both overexpression and knockdown of Sfrp5 decrease the size of the endoderm, significantly reducing liver cell number. At 3 dpf, insulin-positive endodermal cells fail to coalesce into a single pancreatic islet. We show that Sfrp5 inhibits both canonical and non-canonical Wnt signaling during embryonic and endodermal development, resulting in endodermal abnormalities. © 2013 Stuckenholz et al

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe