PUBLICATION

Live Imaging and Gene Expression Analysis in Zebrafish Identifies a Link between Neutrophils and Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition

Authors
Freisinger, C.M., Huttenlocher, A.
ID
ZDB-PUB-141106-3
Date
2014
Source
PLoS One   9: e112183 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Huttenlocher, Anna
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition*
  • Gene Expression Regulation*
  • Inflammation/genetics
  • Inflammation/metabolism
  • Inflammation/pathology
  • Molecular Imaging*
  • Neutrophils/metabolism*
  • Neutrophils/pathology
  • Zebrafish/genetics
  • Zebrafish/metabolism*
  • Zebrafish Proteins/biosynthesis*
  • Zebrafish Proteins/genetics
PubMed
25372289 Full text @ PLoS One
Abstract
Chronic inflammation is associated with epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cancer progression however the relationship between inflammation and EMT remains unclear. Here, we have exploited zebrafish to visualize and quantify the earliest events during epithelial cell transformation induced by oncogenic HRasV12. Live imaging revealed that expression of HRasV12 in the epidermis results in EMT and chronic neutrophil and macrophage infiltration. We have developed an in vivo system to probe and quantify gene expression changes specifically in transformed cells from chimeric zebrafish expressing oncogenic HRasV12 using translating ribosomal affinity purification (TRAP). We found that the expression of genes associated with EMT, including slug, vimentin and mmp9, are enriched in HRasV12 transformed epithelial cells and that this enrichment requires the presence of neutrophils. An early signal induced by HRasV12 in epithelial cells is the expression of il-8 (cxcl8) and we found that the chemokine receptor, Cxcr2, mediates neutrophil but not macrophage recruitment to the transformed cells. Surprisingly, we also found a cell autonomous role for Cxcr2 signaling in transformed cells for both neutrophil recruitment and EMT related gene expression associated with Ras transformation. Taken together, these findings implicate both autocrine and paracrine signaling through Cxcr2 in the regulation of inflammation and gene expression in transformed epithelial cells.
Genes / Markers
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Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping