Disturbed flow impairs MerTK-mediated efferocytosis in aortic endothelial cells during atherosclerosis

作者：Jinzi Wu, Shijie Liu, Oishani Banerjee, Hang Shi, Bingzhong Xue, Zufeng Ding · 发表于：Theranostics · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.7150/thno.93036 · 被引用次数：54 · 研究领域：Phagocytosis and Immune Regulation、Immune cells in cancer、Apelin-related biomedical research

Background: MER proto-oncogene tyrosine kinase (MerTK) is a key receptor for efferocytosis, a process for the clearance of apoptotic cells.MerTK is mainly expressed in macrophages and immature dendritic cells.There are very limited reports focused on MerTK biology in aortic endothelial cells (ECs).It remains unclear for the role of blood flow patterns in regulating MerTK-mediated efferocytosis in aortic ECs.This study was designed to investigate whether endothelial MerTK and EC efferocytosis respond to blood flow patterns during atherosclerosis.Methods: Big data analytics, RNA-seq and proteomics combined with our in vitro and in vivo studies were applied to reveal the potential molecular mechanisms.Partial carotid artery ligation combined with AAV-PCSK9 and high fat diet were used to set up acute atherosclerosis in 4 weeks.Results: Our data showed that MerTK is sensitive to blood flow patterns and is inhibited by disturbed flow and oscillatory shear stress in primary human aortic ECs (HAECs).The RNA-seq data in HAECs incubated with apoptotic cells showed that d-flow promotes pro-inflammatory pathway and senescence pathway.Our in vivo data of proteomics and immunostaining showed that, compared with WT group, MerTK -/-aggravates atherosclerosis in d-flow areas through upregulation of endothelial dysfunction markers (e.g.IL-1β, NF-κB, TLR4, MAPK signaling, vWF, VCAM-1 and p22 phox ) and mitochondrial dysfunction.Interestingly, MerTK -/-induces obvious abnormal endothelial thicke...