Abstract

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) is an effective therapeutic procedure to treat hematological malignancies. However, the benefit of allo-HCT is limited by a major complication, chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD). Since transmembrane and secretory proteins are generated and modified in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the ER stress response is of great importance to secretory cells including B cells. By using conditional knock-out (KO) of XBP-1, IRE-1α or both specifically on B cells, we demonstrated that the IRE-1α/XBP-1 pathway, one of the major ER stress response mediators, plays a critical role in B cell pathogenicity on the induction of cGVHD in murine models of allo-HCT. Endoribonuclease activity of IRE-1α activates XBP-1 signaling by converting unspliced XBP-1 (XBP-1u) mRNA into spliced XBP-1 (XBP-1s) mRNA but also cleaves other ER-associated mRNAs through regulated IRE-1α-dependent decay (RIDD). Further, ablation of XBP-1s production leads to unleashed activation of RIDD. Therefore, we hypothesized that RIDD plays an important role in B cells during cGVHD development. In this study, we found that the reduced pathogenicity of XBP-1 deficient B cells in cGVHD was reversed by RIDD restriction in IRE-1α kinase domain KO mice. Restraining RIDD activity per se in B cells resulted in an increased severity of cGVHD. Besides, inhibition of RIDD activity compromised B cell differentiation and led to dysregulated expression of MHC II and costimulatory molecules such as CD86, CD40, and ICOSL in B cells. Furthermore, restraining the RIDD activity without affecting XBP-1 splicing increased B cell ability to induce cGVHD after allo-HCT. These results suggest that RIDD is an important mediator for reducing cGVHD pathogenesis through targeting XBP-1s.

Highlights

  • It is an effective therapy to treat hematological disease, the benefit of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is limited by the induction of complications such as acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) [1, 2]

  • We hypothesized that enhanced regulated IRE-1a-dependent decay (RIDD) resulting from XBP-1s deletion is an important factor to reduce B cell pathogenicity in Chronic GVHD (cGVHD) development

  • We previously demonstrated that targeting XBP-1s in B cells efficiently prevented cGVHD by reducing activation and differentiation of B cells [24]

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Summary

Introduction

It is an effective therapy to treat hematological disease, the benefit of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HCT) is limited by the induction of complications such as acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) [1, 2]. The US Food and Drug Administration approved ibrutinib, a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, which is important for B cell receptor signaling, as second-line therapy of steroid-refractory cGVHD [11]. It shows that B cell regulation can be one of the essential targets for cGVHD treatment. We focus on the role of the unfolded protein response (UPR) mediators in regulating B cell activity after allo-HCT

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