查看文章

Background: Activated cardiac fibroblasts produce extracellular matrix proteins that accumulate during cardiac fibrosis. We have recently shown that PW1 is expressed in a subset of cardiac stromal cells and that cardiac PW1+ cells represent a cellular source of fibroblasts in the ischemic hearts.

Purpose: We aimed to further identify new cell surface markers expressed by cardiac PW1+ cells and to investigate their role in the fibrogenic behavior of these cells.

Methods and results: We first performed transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of FACS-isolated cardiac PW1+ from normal and ischemic hearts. RNA-sequencing output files were processed with bioinformatics algorithms to identify 378 specific cell-surface markers for cardiac PW1+ cells. By comparing these candidates with the proteomic profile, we then crossidentified 9 cell surface proteins primarily involved in cell motility, adhesion to the matrix, inflammatory response and response to wounding. One of these candidates (ie, aV-integrin or CD51) was expressed in almost all cardiac PW1+ cells (93±1%), and was predominantly found in cells expressing PW1 in the myocardium. Cardiac PW1+ cells showed a predominant expression of aVβ1 complex which is known to mediate fibrosis through TGF-beta activation in a number of tissues. The transfer of isolated cardiac PW1+ CD51+ cells into ischemic hearts was associated with fibrosis development. We further demonstrated that inhibition of aV-integrin in cardiac PW1+ cells reduces their profibrotic gene expression profile and their ability to differentiate into fibroblasts. Lastly, a pharmacological blockade of aV-integrin improved cardiac function …