Renal telocytes contribute to the repair of ischemically injured renal tubules

Abstract

Telocytes (TCs), a distinct type of interstitial cells, have been identified in many organs via electron microscopy. However, their precise function in organ regeneration remains unknown. This study investigated the paracrine effect of renal TCs on renal tubular epithelial cells (TECs) in vitro, the regenerative function of renal TCs in renal tubules after ischaemia–reperfusion injury (IRI) in vivo and the possible mechanisms involved. In a renal IRI model, transplantation of renal TCs was found to decrease serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels, while renal fibroblasts exerted no such effect. The results of histological injury assessments and the expression levels of cleaved caspase-3 were consistent with a change in kidney function. Our data suggest that the protective effect of TCs against IRI occurs via inflammation-independent mechanisms in vivo. Furthermore, we found that renal TCs could not directly promote the proliferation and anti-apoptosis properties of TECs in vitro. TCs did not display any advantage in paracrine growth factor secretion in vitro compared with renal fibroblasts. These data indicate that renal TCs protect against renal IRI via an inflammation-independent pathway and that growth factors play a significant role in this mechanism. Renal TCs may protect TECs in certain microenvironments while interacting with other cells.

Knockdown of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E suppresses cell growth and invasion, and induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in a human lung adenocarcinoma cell line

“…A549 cells in the logarithmic phase were resuspended and seeded into a 96-well plate at 2x10 3 cells/well and incubated at 37˚C in an atmosphere containing 5% CO 2 . After 24 h, the cells were transfected, as previously described (14). The transfected cells were cultured and after 48 and 72 h, cell viability was assessed using a Cell Counting kit-8 (Beyotime Institute of Biotechnology), and calculated using the following formula: Viability (%) = (A experimental / A control ) x100%.…”

Increased telocytes involved in the proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells in rat carotid artery balloon injury

“…Although VSMC phenotypic transformation and the stem cells/ progenitors of VSMCs have been considered to be the main factors in VSMC proliferation, the underlying mechanism of VSMC proliferation remains controversial. Recently, a new type of interstitial cells called TCs have attracted increasing attention because of their great potential in tissue regeneration and repair (Ja et al, 2016;Li et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2014).…”

“…Increasing evidence has indicated that TCs are involved in the pathological processes of many diseases, including myocardial infarction (Manole et al, 2011;Zhao et al, 2013Zhao et al, , 2014, heart failure (Richter and Kostin, 2015), renal ischemia-reperfusion injury (Li et al, 2014), liver fibrosis (Fu et al, 2015), and others. However, the potential roles and mechanisms of TCs in the repair of vascular injury remained to be elucidated.…”

Ultrastructural identification of telocytes in the muscularis of chicken ileum

“…TCs have been described in the interstitium of certain parenchimatous organs in mammals (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22) and, although ICCs have been identified in the digestive tract of turkeys (23) and in the intestine of chickens (24), the presence of ICLCs or TCs in the digestive system of the chicken remains unclear. In addition, Cantarero Carmona et al (25) described TCs at the intestinal level, in the lamina propria of rat duodenum; however, to the best of our knowledge, studies on TCs in the intestinal muscularis have not previously been conducted.…”