Uncoupling of mucosal gene regulation, mRNA splicing and adherent microbiota signatures in inflammatory bowel disease.

OBJECTIVE: An inadequate host response to the intestinal microbiota likely contributes to the manifestation and progression of human inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, molecular approaches to unravelling the nature of the defective crosstalk and its consequences for intestinal metabolic and immunological networks are lacking. We assessed the mucosal transcript levels, splicing architecture and mucosa-attached microbial communities of patients with IBD to obtain a comprehensive view of the underlying, hitherto poorly characterised interactions, and how these are altered in IBD. DESIGN: Mucosal biopsies from Crohn's disease and patients with UC, disease controls and healthy individuals (n=63) were subjected to microbiome, transcriptome and splicing analysis, employing next-generation sequencing. The three data levels were integrated by different bioinformatic approaches, including systems biology-inspired network and pathway analysis. RESULTS: Microbiota, host transcript levels and host splicing patterns were influenced most strongly by tissue differences, followed by the effect of inflammation. Both factors point towards a substantial disease-related alteration of metabolic processes. We also observed a strong enrichment of splicing events in inflamed tissues, accompanied by an alteration of the mucosa-attached bacterial taxa. Finally, we noted a striking uncoupling of the three molecular entities when moving from healthy individuals via disease controls to patients with IBD. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide strong evidence that the interplay between microbiome and host transcriptome, which normally characterises a state of intestinal homeostasis, is drastically perturbed in Crohn's disease and UC. Consequently, integrating multiple OMICs levels appears to be a promising approach to further disentangle the complexity of IBD.

Interleukin-1beta regulates cell proliferation and activity of extracellular matrix remodelling enzymes in cultured primary pig heart cells.

After myocardial infarction, elevated levels of interleukins (ILs) are found within the myocardial tissue and IL-1beta is considered to play a major role in tissue remodelling events throughout the body. In the study presented, we have established a cell culture model of primary pig heart cells to evaluate the effects of different concentrations of IL-1beta on cell proliferation as well as expression and activity of enzymes typically involved in tissue remodelling. Primary pig heart cell cultures were derived from three different animals and stimulated with recombinant pig IL-1beta. RNA expression was detected by RT-PCR, protein levels were evaluated by Western blotting, activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) was quantified by gelatine zymography and cell proliferation was measured using colorimetric MTS assays. Pig heart cells express receptors for IL-1 and application of IL-1beta resulted in a dose-dependent increase of cell proliferation (P<0.05 vs. control; 100ng/ml; 24h). Gene expression of caspase-3 was increased by IL-1beta (P<0.05 vs. control; 100ng/ml; 3h), and pro-caspase-3 but not active caspase was detected in lysates of pig heart cells by Western blotting. MMP-2 gene expression as well as enzymatic activities of MMP-2 and MMP-9 were increased by IL-1beta (P<0.05 vs. control; 100ng/ml; 3h for gene expression, 48 and 72h for enzymatic activities of MMP-2 and MMP-9, respectively). Our in vitro data suggest that IL-1beta plays a major role in the events of tissue remodelling in the heart. Combined with our recently published in vivo data (Meybohm et al., PLoS One, 2009), the results presented here strongly suggest IL-1beta as a key molecule guiding tissue remodelling events after myocardial infarction.