Acute kidney injury is a major clinical problem and advanced age is associated with ineffective renal regeneration and poor functional outcome. Data from kidney injury models suggest that a loss of tubular epithelial proliferation contributes to a decrease in renal repair capacity with aging, but aging can also lead to a higher severity of inflammation and damage which may influence repair. In this study we tested intrinsic age-dependent changes in tubular epithelial proliferation in young and old mice, by injecting low-dose lead acetate as a non-injurious mitogen. In parallel, we explored in vitro techniques of studying cellular senescence in primary tubular epithelial cells (PTEC). Lead acetate induced tubular epithelial proliferation at a significantly higher rate in young as compared to old mice. Old kidneys showed significantly more senescence as demonstrated by increased p16INK4a, senescence associated β-galactosidase, and γH2AX+/Ki-67− cells. This was paralleled in old kidneys by a higher number of Cyclin D1 positive tubular cells. This finding was corroborated by a positive correlation between Cyclin D1 positivity and age in human renal biopsies. When tubular cells were isolated from mouse kidneys they rapidly lost their age-associated differences under culture conditions. However, senescence was readily induced in PTEC by γ-irradiation representing a future model for study of cellular senescence in the renal epithelium. Together, our data indicate that the tubular epithelium of aged kidney has an intrinsically reduced proliferative capacity probably due to a higher load of senescent cells. Moreover, stress induced models of cellular senescence are preferable for study of the renal epithelium in vitro. Finally, the positive correlation of Cyclin D1 with age and cellular senescence in PTEC needs further evaluation as to a functional role of renal epithelial aging.

A number of studies have demonstrated induction of the unfolded protein response (UPR) in patients with severe congenital neutropenia (CN) harbouring mutations of ELANE, encoding neutrophil elastase. Why UPR is not activated in patients with cyclic neutropenia (CyN) carrying the same ELANE mutations is unclear. We evaluated the effects of ELANE mutants on UPR induction in myeloid cells from CN and CyN patients, and analysed whether additional CN-specific defects contribute to the differences in UPR induction between CN and CyN patients harbouring identical ELANE mutations. We investigated CN-specific p.C71R and p.V174_C181del (NP_001963.1) and CN/CyN-shared p.S126L (NP_001963.1) ELANE mutants. We found that transduction of haematopoietic cells with p.C71R, but not with p.V174_C181del or p.S126L ELANE mutants induced expression of ATF6, and the ATF6 target genes PPP1R15A, DDIT3 and HSPA5. Recently, we found that levels of secretory leucocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI), a natural ELANE inhibitor, are diminished in myeloid cells from CN patients, but not CyN patients. Combined knockdown of SLPI by shRNA and transduction of ELANE p.S126L in myeloid cells led to elevated levels of ATF6, PPP1R15A and HSPA5 RNA, suggesting that normal levels of SLPI in CyN patients might protect them from the UPR induced by mutant ELANE. In summary, different ELANE mutants have different effects on UPR activation, and SLPI regulates the extent of ELANE-triggered UPR.

Key Points Hyperactivated STAT5a binds LEF-1 protein leading to NLK/NARF/ubiquitin-dependent degradation of LEF-1 followed by defective granulopoiesis. In CN patients, elevated levels of phospho-STAT5a resulted in diminished LEF-1 expression, which could be restored by bortezomib treatment.

No abstract

14 Several studies found that in patients with severe congenital neutropenia (CN) harboring mutations in the ELANE gene mutated NE protein induced unfolded protein response (UPR) leading to elevated apoptosis and diminished differentiation of myeloid cells. However, it is unclear, why UPR was not detected in patients with cyclic neutropenia (CyN) carrying the same ELANE mutations, which have been found in CN patients. Several UPR components have been identified in mammalian cells, which include three transducers (IRE1, PERK, and activating transcription factor 6 (ATF-6) as well as one master regulator (BiP/GRP78). BiP is known to be regulated by ATF6. The activation of ATF6 and its target genes (GADD34, CHOP and BiP) in CN patients has not been studied yet. We were able to detect significantly elevated levels of ATF6 and BiP in myeloid cells of CN patients with ELANE mutations, in comparison to CyN patients and to healthy individuals. Therefore, we investigated the mechanism of UPR and activation of ATF6 and ATF6 target genes in CN patients in comparison to CyN patients. We transduced the myeloid cell lines HL60 and NB4 with lentiviral constructs contained either wild type (WT) ELANE cDNA, or mutated (MUT) ELANE cDNA and measured mRNA and protein expression of ATF6 as well as mRNA expression of ATF6 target genes. We compared the effects of three ELANE mutations: C42R, V145-C152del (both mutations presented in CN patients, but not in CyN patients) and S97L (typical for CN and CyN patients) with WT ELANE. We found that in both cell lines only C42R ELANE MUT, but not V145-C152del ELANE MUT or S97L ELANE MUT induced expression of ATF6, GADD34, CHOP and BiP, as compared to control transduced cells. Furthermore, we hypothesize that degradation of mutated NE protein by Secretory Leukocyte Protease Inhibitor (SLPI) might be involved in UPR induction. However, we detected only very low levels of SLPI mRNA in CD33+ myeloid cells and in PMNs of patients with severe congenital neutropenia (CN), as compared to patients with cyclic neutropenia (CyN) and to healthy individuals. The lack of the NE inhibitor, SLPI in CN patients may further contribute to elevated UPR triggered by ELANE MUT and normal levels of SLPI in CyN patients might protect from ELANE MUT-induced UPR. Indeed, inhibition of SLPI using SLPI-specific shRNA led to a significantly elevated expression levels of ATF6, GADD34 and BIP, as compared to ctrl shRNA transduced cells. More importantly, co-transduction of NB4 cells with SLPI shRNA in combination with ELANE S97L MUT (which is common for both CN and CyN patients), but not with WT ELANE led to elevated levels of ATF6, GADD34 and BIP. In summary, different ELANE mutations have different effects on UPR as judged by ATF6 activation and the level of ELANE-triggered UPR is regulated by SLPI. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.