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Montesi, Sydney

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Montesi

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Sydney

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Montesi, Sydney

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    Docosatetraenoyl LPA is elevated in exhaled breath condensate in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
    (BioMed Central, 2014) Montesi, Sydney; Mathai, Susan K; Brenner, Laura; Gorshkova, Irina A; Berdyshev, Evgeny V; Tager, Andrew Martin; Shea, Barry S
    Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and fatal disease with no effective medical therapies. Recent research has focused on identifying the biological processes essential to the development and progression of fibrosis, and on the mediators driving these processes. Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), a biologically active lysophospholipid, is one such mediator. LPA has been found to be elevated in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid of IPF patients, and through interaction with its cell surface receptors, it has been shown to drive multiple biological processes implicated in the development of IPF. Accordingly, the first clinical trial of an LPA receptor antagonist in IPF has recently been initiated. In addition to being a therapeutic target, LPA also has potential to be a biomarker for IPF. There is increasing interest in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) analysis as a non-invasive method for biomarker detection in lung diseases, but to what extent LPA is present in EBC is not known. Methods: In this study, we used liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to assess for the presence of LPA in the EBC and plasma from 11 IPF subjects and 11 controls. Results: A total of 9 different LPA species were detectable in EBC. Of these, docosatetraenoyl (22:4) LPA was significantly elevated in the EBC of IPF subjects when compared to controls (9.18 pM vs. 0.34 pM; p = 0.001). A total of 13 different LPA species were detectable in the plasma, but in contrast to the EBC, there were no statistically significant differences in plasma LPA species between IPF subjects and controls. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that multiple LPA species are detectable in EBC, and that 22:4 LPA levels are elevated in the EBC of IPF patients. Further research is needed to determine the significance of this elevation of 22:4 LPA in IPF EBC, as well as its potential to serve as a biomarker for disease severity and/or progression.
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    ADAM10-mediated ephrin-B2 shedding promotes myofibroblast activation and organ fibrosis
    (2017) Lagares, David; Ghassemi-Kakroodi, Parisa; Tremblay, Caroline; Santos, Alba; Probst, Clemens K.; Franklin, Alicia; Santos, Daniela M.; Grasberger, Paula; Ahluwalia, Neil; Montesi, Sydney; Shea, Barry S.; Black, Katharine; Knipe, Rachel; Blati, Meryem; Baron, Murray; Wu, Brian; Fahmi, Hassan; Gandhi, Rajiv; Pardo, Annie; Selman, Moisés; Wu, Jiangping; Pelletier, Jean-Pierre; Martel-Pelletier, Johanne; Tager, Andrew M.; Kapoor, Mohit
    Maladaptive wound healing responses to chronic tissue injury result in organ fibrosis. Fibrosis, which entails excessive extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition and tissue remodelling by activated myofibroblasts, leads to loss of proper tissue architecture and organ function; however the molecular mediators of myofibroblast activation remain to be fully identified. Here we identify soluble ephrin-B2 as a novel pro-fibrotic mediator in lung and skin fibrosis. We provide molecular, functional and translational evidence that the ectodomain of membrane-bound ephrin-B2 is shed from fibroblasts into the alveolar airspace after lung injury. Shedding of soluble ephrin-B2 (sEphrin-B2) promotes fibroblast chemotaxis and activation via EphB3/EphB4 receptor signaling. We found that mice lacking ephrin-B2 in fibroblasts are protected from skin and lung fibrosis and that a distintegrin and metalloproteinase 10 (ADAM10) is the major ephrin-B2 sheddase in fibroblasts. ADAM10 is induced by transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), and ADAM10-mediated sEphrin-B2 generation is required for TGF-β1–induced myofibroblast activation. Pharmacological inhibition of ADAM10 reduces sEphrin-B2 levels in bronchoalveolar lavage and prevents lung fibrosis in mice. Consistent with the mouse data, ADAM10/sEphrin-B2 signaling is upregulated in fibroblasts from human subjects with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. These results uncover a new molecular mechanism of tissue fibrogenesis and identify sEphrin-B2, its receptors Eph3/Eph4, and ADAM10 as potential therapeutic targets in the treatment of fibrotic diseases.