Journal: Annals of the rheumatic diseases
Article Title: RUNX1 is expressed in a subpopulation of dermal fibroblasts and is associated with disease severity of systemic sclerosis
doi: 10.1016/j.ard.2025.10.033
Figure Lengend Snippet: RUNX1 contributes to fibroblast activation, proliferation and contraction. (A) RUNX1 western blot of CRISPR-generated RUNX1 KO and wild-type (WT) fibroblasts under the TGF- β 1 stimulation vs control. RUNX1 isoforms of a, b, and c were marked in the blot by arrows. (B) α -SMA and RUNX1 IF staining of KO and WT fibroblasts under the TGF- β 1 stimulation vs control. (C) α -SMA western blot of KO and WT fibroblasts under the TGF- β 1 stimulation vs control. (D) ACTA2 mRNA expression of KO and WT fibroblasts under the TGF- β 1 induction vs control. (E) Fold change expression of FN1, COL1A1, LUM , and SFRP4 in TGF- β 1-induced SSc fibroblasts treated with Ro5–3335 compared to control (3 lines of SSc fibroblasts, 2 replicates each). (F) Proliferation curve of normal human dermal (NHD) fibroblasts in the presence and absence of Ro5–3335. (G,H) The 3D collagen contraction assays, fixed (G) and floating (H) models, of NHD fibroblasts treated with Ro5–3335 (4 replicates for each condition). SIS3 (SMAD3 inhibitor) was used as positive control that significantly eliminates the contraction ability of fibroblasts. Negative control is collagen matrix with no fibroblasts. The overhead pictures represent 1 replicate for each condition. (I) 3D self-assembled (SA) tissue constructs from the healthy- and SSc-isolated fibroblast lines with donors’ clinical characteristics. H&E staining of representative untreated and Ro5–3335-treated tissues. (J) Tissue area fold change of each cell line over the control for healthy and SSc SA tissues. Data from 3 healthy and 4 SSc lines, 3 replicates per line, repeated in 2 independent sets. (K) Change in area of an SSc-isolated SA tissue when treated for 1, 2, or 3 weeks with Ro5–3335 compared to control (Student’s t test P value: **.001-.01, ****<.0001 in GraphPad Prism v9). α -SMA, alpha smooth muscle actin; H&E, haematoxylin and eosin; KO, knockout; RUNX1, runt-related transcription factor 1; SSc, systemic sclerosis; TGF- β , transforming growth factor- β ;Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR),Smad Family Member 3 (SMAD3),Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (GAPDH), Not Applicable (N/A), Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (QPCR), Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction, Immunofluorescenc (IF).
Article Snippet: We then analysed a previously generated DNA microarray dataset (National Center for Biotechnology Information Gene Expression Omnibus (NCBI GEO): GSE12493 ) consisting of 2 independent SSc fibroblast cell lines, 1 healthy control fibroblast cell line (isolated in parallel), and 1 normal human dermal (NHD) fibroblast cell line obtained from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), treated with 50 pM TGF- β 1 [ ] ( ).
Techniques: Activation Assay, Western Blot, CRISPR, Generated, Control, Staining, Expressing, Positive Control, Negative Control, Construct, Isolation, Knock-Out, Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction