THE ROLE OF CASPASE-4/11-GASDERMIN D PATHWAY IN PROMOTING VASCULAR INFLAMMATION IN CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE

Abstract

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects 13.4% of adults in America; and 38% in people aged 65 years or older[1]. In addition, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in CKD patients with end-stage kidney disease. CKD is associated with chronic inflammation, which contributes to the progression of CVD[2]. Furthermore, CKD alter apolipoprotein profile and elevate plasma lipid levels. It has been reported that 68.8% of CKD patients are associated with hyperlipidemia[3]. Therefore, hyperlipidemia is the critical risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in CKD patients [4, 5]. In addition, trained immunity has been shown to play a critical role in chronic inflammatory diseases[6]. However, whether trained immunity promotes the inflammation in hyperlipidemia-CKD remains unclear. Circulating lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is significantly increased in atherosclerotic and CKD patients[7]. Clinical data indicates that circulating LPS is positively associated with the progression of CKD, and its levels even higher in patients with hemodialysis or dialysis[8]. Studies found that circulating LPS is delivered into cytosol for caspase-4/11 activation[9]. The Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcome Study (CANTOS) involving 10,061 patients found that targeting interleukin-1β (IL-1β) innate immunity pathway is significantly lowered the rate of recurrent cardiovascular events independent of lipid-level lowering[10]. Therefore, inhibiting the secretion of proinflammatory cytokine IL-1β has high potential to future development of novel therapeutics for hyperlipidemia-CKD accelerated CVD. Gasdermin D (GSDMD) is cleaved by inflammatory caspase-1 and caspase-4. N-terminal GSDMD binds to plasma membrane forming protein channel [11] and mediates the secretion of IL-1β[12, 13]. We found that caspase-1 activation was significantly decreased in caspase-4/11 deficient high-fat diet (HFD)-CKD mice, indicating that caspase-4 could regulate caspase-1 activation in HFD-CKD. Whether increased cytosolic LPS contribute to the increased vascular inflammation via caspase-4/11-GSDMD-IL-1β pathway remains unknown. In this study, we used HFD fed 5/6 nephrectomy CKD mice in vivo and cytosolic LPS stimulation in human aortic endothelial cell (HAECs) in vitro. We made the following results: 1) Inflammatory pathways are significantly increased in the aorta of HFD-CKD compared to HFD-Sham, normal diet (ND)-CKD, and ND-Sham. 2) Expression levels of endothelial cell activation markers (ICAM1 and VCAM1) are significantly increased in the aorta of HFD-CKD mice compared to HFD-Sham, ND-CKD, and ND-Sham. 3) Caspase-4 activation and N-GSDMD cleavage are significantly increased in the aorta of HFD-CKD mice compared to HFD-Sham, ND-CKD, and ND-Sham and in cytosolic LPS stimulated HAECs. 4) The increased inflammatory pathways and increased expression of adhesion molecules are decreased in the deficiency of caspase-4 in vivo and in the presence of caspase-4 inhibitor and N-terminal GSDMD cleavage inhibitor in vitro. 5) The increased mitochondrial ROS promote endothelial cell activation via caspase-4-GSDMD axis. Taken together, the caspase-4/11-GSDMD axis mediates endothelial cell activation and vascular inflammation in the aorta of HFD-CKD mice compared to controls. Furthermore, the increased endothelial cell activation and vascular inflammation are restored by caspase-4/11 deficiency in the aorta of HFD-CKD mice. These evidence indicate that inhibiting caspase-4/11-GSDMD axis could be a potential therapeutic target for inhibiting vascular inflammation associated with hyperlipidemia-CKD.