Project description:Mammals have evolved neurophysiologic reflexes such as coughing and scratching to expel invading pathogens and noxious environmental factors. It is well established that these responses are also associated with chronic inflammatory diseases such as asthma and atopic dermatitis. However, the mechanisms by which inflammatory pathways promote sensations such as itch remain poorly understood. Here, we show that the type 2 cytokines IL-4 and IL-13 directly stimulate sensory neurons and that chronic itch is dependent on neuronal IL-4Rα and JAK1 signaling. In proof-of-concept clinical studies, we further show that patients with recalcitrant chronic itch markedly improve when treated with JAK inhibitors. Thus, signaling mechanisms previously ascribed to the immune system may represent novel therapeutic targets within the nervous system. Collectively, these studies reveal an evolutionarily conserved paradigm in which the sensory nervous system employs classical immune signaling pathways to influence mammalian behavior.
Project description:In the present study, RNA-seq were performed To identify clinical relevance of PLAUR, a putative Serpin E1 receptor, in cutaneous itch signaling and crosstalk pathways with other critical itch modulators.mRNA profiles were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using MGISEQ-2000. Our experiment showed Serpin E1-treatment further led to a marked upregulation of TLR2 transcript in mDRG neurons, along with enhanced transcription of cosignaling proteins belonging to pro-inflammatory signaling pathways including NF-κB signaling proteins. We next investigated the consequence of TLR2 activation in mTGNs using the TLR agonists, Pam3CSK4 (TLR1/2 agonist), FSL-1 (TLR2/6 agonist), or vehicle. Among these transcripts, TLR2 was found upregulated strongest by both TLR2 agonists suggesting a selfenhancing feedback loop of TLR2 activation.The PLAUR-TLR2 axis promotes cutaneous inflammation and itch, both feeding into an aggravation of AD. This finding might help us to better understand the skin-nerve communication in itch circuits.
Project description:In order to analyze the regulatory effects of UII and GPR14 on gene transcription in Mc903-induced atopic dermatitis skin, ear skin collected from MC903 chronic itch mouse model on day 13 was used for in-depth analysis and sequencing of skin gene expression. The effect of GSK1562590 on the expression of pruritus and inflammatory factors in dermatitis was detected by RNA-seq.
Project description:Mammals have evolved neurophysiologic reflexes such as coughing and scratching to expel invading pathogens and noxious environmental factors. It is well established that these responses are also associated with chronic inflammatory diseases such as asthma and atopic dermatitis. However, the mechanisms by which inflammatory pathways promote sensations such as itch remain poorly understood. Here, we show that type 2 cytokines directly stimulate sensory neurons in both mice and humans. Further, we demonstrate that chronic itch is dependent on neuronal IL-4Rα and JAK1 signaling. Based on these observations, we show that patients with recalcitrant chronic itch markedly improve when treated with JAK inhibitors in proof-of-concept clinical studies. Thus, signaling mechanisms previously ascribed to the immune system may represent novel therapeutic targets within the nervous system. Collectively, these studies reveal an evolutionarily conserved paradigm in which the sensory nervous system employs classical immune signaling pathways to influence mammalian behavior.
Project description:We found that the E3 ubiquitin ligase Itch significantly affects early B-cell differentiation. To explore the role of Itch in late B-cell differentiation, we sorted B cells from WT and Itch KO mice. To explore the effect of Itch deficency on gene expression, we determined mRNA profiles in B cells from WT and Itch KO mice by RNA-seq. RNA-seq was done with an Illumina HiSeq 2500 instrument at GENEWIZ, Suzhou, China.