Fibronectin Binding Modulates CXCL11 Activity and Facilitates Wound Healing

Hubbell JA (2013) Fibronectin Binding Modulates CXCL11 Activity and Facilitates Wound Healing. PLoS ONE 8(10): e79610. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079610 Fibronectin Binding Modulates CXCL11 Activity and Facilitates Wound Healing Federico Tortelli 0 Marco Pisano 0 Priscilla S. Briquez 0 Mikal M. Martino 0 Jeffrey A. Hubbell 0 Mrio A. Barbosa, Instituto de Engenharia Biomdica, University of Porto, Portugal 0 1 Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences and School of Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2 Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, School of Basic Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne , Lausanne , Switzerland Engineered biomatrices offer the potential to recapitulate the regenerative microenvironment, with important implications in tissue repair. In this context, investigation of the molecular interactions occurring between growth factors, cytokines and extracellular matrix (ECM) has gained increasing interest. Here, we sought to investigate the possible interactions between the ECM proteins fibronectin (FN) and fibrinogen (Fg) with the CXCR3 ligands CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11, which are expressed during wound healing. New binding interactions were observed and characterized. Heparin-binding domains within Fg (residues 15-66 of the chain, Fg 15-66) and FN (FNI1-5, but not FNIII12-14) were involved in binding to CXCL10 and CXCL11 but not CXCL9. To investigate a possible influence of FN and Fg interactions with CXCL11 in mediating its role during re-epithelialization, we investigated human keratinocyte migration in vitro and wound healing in vivo in diabetic db/db mice. A synergistic effect on CXCL11induced keratinocyte migration was observed when cells were treated with CXCL11 in combination with FN in a transmigration assay. Moreover, wound healing was enhanced in full thickness excisional wounds treated with fibrin matrices functionalized with FN and containing CXCL11. These findings highlight the importance of the interactions occurring between cytokines and ECM and point to design concepts to develop functional matrices for regenerative medicine. - Regenerative medicine has evolved from an initial focus on transplanted cells to also embrace development of advanced biomatrices laden with active biomolecules that enhance tissue repair and control the host response by mimicking the regenerative microenvironment[1,2]. In this context, a full comprehension of the overall signaling network driving wound healing is still missing and the complex pattern of interactions between the different biological moieties involved (i.e. cytokines, growth factors, extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, integrin ligands) is incompletely understood. Still, new insights into the pivotal interactions regulating dermal wound healing can have important implications for new therapies, such as in treatment of diabetic foot ulcers. Skin wound healing is the result of a complex network of biological events where the ECM and other soluble molecules such as growth factors and cytokines play a fundamental role in driving the fate of different cell types. Recently, an important role has become clear for the ELR-negative cytokines CXCL10 and CXCL11, signaling through their common receptor CXCR3, in coordinating the regenerative and resolving phase of cutaneous healing[3]. Delivery of a CXCL11 antisense construct worsened wound healing, leading to delayed reepithelialization and impaired epidermis maturation, a phenotype observed in CXCR3-deficient mice as well[4-6]. Although a full understanding of the biological processes linking the CXCR3 axis to wound healing is still missing, it is now clear that CXCL11, expressed in injured epidermis, plays an important role in enhancing undifferentiated keratinocyte motility, thus coordinating the resolution and regenerative phase together with signals coming from the ECM [3,7]. Recently, the importance of the ECM in presenting growth factors during the regenerative phase of wound healing has gained interest, particularly in view of development of new biomatrices for morphogen delivery[8,9]. Interactions between ECM proteins and morphogens modulate local morphogen concentration and signaling and can create specific biomolecular gradients based on the ECM composition. Good examples are the interactions between fibroblast growth Figure 1. Fibronectin and fibrinogen binding to CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11. CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11 binding to FN (A) and Fg (B) was determined by indirect ELISA and calibrated to PDGF-BB binding to FN as a strongly binding reference (Abs 450nm = 0.59 AU) and Fg (Abs 450 nm=0.79 AU), respectively. FN and Fg binding to BSA were considered as background and subtracted. Binding of CXCL10 and CXCL11, but not CXCL9, was observed (*). (n=6, mean SD). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079610.g001 factor-2 (FGF-2), transforming growth factor beta (TGF-) and vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) with proteoglycans as well as ECM proteins vitronectin, fibrin and FN[10-15]. Heparin binding domains of different ECM proteins have been shown to bind certain growth factors. In recent studies, our laboratory has shown rather promiscuous growth factor interactions with the 12th-14th type III repeats of fibronectin (FNIII 12-14)[10], residues 15-66 of the chain of fibrinogen (Fg 15-66)[16] and the 5th fibronectin-like repeat of tenascin C[17]. Such interactions were engineered to develop biomatrices for tissue repair through presentation of growth factors such as VEGF-A and PDGF-BB [9,16]. Here, we sought to investigate potential interactions occurring between two of the most important matrix proteins, FN and Fg, and CXCR3 ligands expressed in injured epidermis, CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11[18]. Discovering such binding with CXCL10 and CXCL11, we turned our attention to the effects of these interactions both in vitro and in vivo in the context of the role of CXCL11 in modulating keratinocyte migration and coordinating re-epithelialization. We show that the interaction of CXCL11 with FN can be exploited in fibrin matrices to enhance wound healing in the db/db diabetic mouse. used as positive control due to its high affinity binding to both of these ECM molecules [10,16], while binding to bovine serum albumin (BSA) was measured as negative reference control. Briefly, the cytokines were coated on ELISA plates, blocked and subsequently incubated with either FN or Fg. Binding was evaluated by using a specific antibody against either FN or Fg and normalized to binding on adsorbed PDGF-BB. Since weak binders of FN such as PDGF-CC and VEGF-C were previously reported to bind FN with a relative binding to PDGF-BB close to 0.05 we define this value as threshold to define relevant binders [10]. CXCL10 and CXCL11 were both observed to bind FN and Fg, while CXCL9 was not (Figure 1). Binding to other cytokines from the CC chemokine, interferon and interleukin families was also investiga (...truncated)