Dans le cadre de la prédiction du risque fracturaire associée à diverses pathologies, comme l'ostéoporose, cette étude vise à une meilleure compréhension du comportement mécanique de l'os cortical humain, notamment à l'échelle de la microstructure, et, en particulier, du processus biologique de remodelage osseux. Ce phénomène permet, en effet, le renouvellement continuel de la microstructure au cours du temps et contribue ainsi à une diminution de l'endommagement de l'os et, par conséquent, des risques de fracture. Les facteurs déterminants et les conséquences sur les champs mécaniques locaux au sein de la microstructure sont ici recherchés. Une approche couplée, expérimentale et numérique, est proposée. Huit spécimens de fémurs humains, de sexes féminins, âgés de 74 à 101 ans sont analysés. L'analyse expérimentale est réalisée à différentes échelles. A l'échelle macroscopique, le module de Young et les paramètres à la rupture sont déterminés via des essais de compression et les relations potentielles avec les caractéristiques morphométriques, que sont l'âge, la porosité et la densité minérale, sont évaluées. L'analyse de l'évolution des champs de déformations locaux au cours de ces essais de compression et des essais de nanoindentation permet d'accéder à des échelles plus fines (micro- et nanoscopique) afin d'apprécier l'hétérogénéité de la microstructure. On s'intéresse plus particulièrement à l'endommagement de l'os et à l'étape d'initiation de microfissures ainsi qu'à l'hétérogénéité du module de Young. Macroscopiquement, le paramètre le plus influent semble être la porosité. Microscopiquement, les paramètres mécaniques recueillis, notamment les valeurs de déformations pour lesquelles l'os commence à se fissurer, sont intégrés dans les simulations numériques. Un scénario simplifié du remodelage osseux est alors mis en place au sein des microstructures étudiées expérimentalement et, par ailleurs, supposées endommageables. Une loi d'évolution de l'endommagement est introduite et fait l'objet d'un travail d'homogénéisation temporelle afin de considérer l'endommagement par fatigue. Les facteurs d'activation du remodelage et l'évolution des champs mécaniques au cours du processus sont, en particulier, étudiés. L'interaction du phénomène biologique et du comportement mécanique, à l'échelle de l'ostéon, est ainsi mise en évidence. / The understanding of the cortical bone remodelling process at the microscopic scale is essential in the prediction of the risk of fracture. Indeed, bone remodelling allows the perpetual regeneration of damage or old bone. The determining factors as well as the consequences of the phenomenon on the mechanical parameters of the microstructure are assessed. An experimental and numerical approach is proposed. Eight femurs from old women are analysed. Experiments are achieved at different scales. At the macroscopical scale, the Young modulus and the fracture parameters are estimated through compression testing and their eventual relations with the morphometrical characteristics (age, porosity and mineral density) are checked. Analyses of the local deformation evolution and of nanoindentation tests give access to the micro- and nanoscales and reveal the bone heterogeneity. Bone damage, especially the stage of microcracks initiation and the heterogeneity of the Young modulus as well as the mineral density are assessed. Macroscopically, porosity is determining. Microscopically, the mechanical values ob- tained, particularly the deformation value at the stage of microcracks initiation, are implemented in the numerical simulation. A bone remodelling scenario is carried out in the former experimental microstructures, supposed damageable. A damage evolution law is set and is improved by taking into account the fatigue damage through a time homogenization method. The factors of remodelling activation and the mechanical parameters evolution during the remodelling process are investigated. Eventually, the interaction between the biological phenomenon and the mechanical behaviour, at the osteon scale, is revealed.

Les objectifs de cette thèse sont de déterminer les mécanismes cellulaires et moléculaires mis en jeu lors de la co-exposition de cellules hépatiques à l'éthanol, un toxique alimentaire, et au benzo[a]pyrène (B[a]P), un important contaminant de l’environnement émis lors de combustions incomplètes. L’exposition d’hépatocytes primaires de rat pendant 8h favorise leur collaboration via l’induction d’une déplétion membranaire en cholestérol par le B[a]P, ce qui facilite l’action de l’éthanol à déstabiliser les lysosomes via la phospholipase C-1 pour entraîner la mort par apoptose. Lors d’une exposition répétée sur 96h dans les cellules WIF-B9, celles-ci provoquent une mort précoce par nécrose suivie d’une apoptose tardive via leurs métabolismes. Leur toxicité impliquerait un remodelage membranaire et un stress oxydant avec la production d’espèces réactives de l’oxygène et la variation de l’homéostasie du fer. / The aim of this work is to determine cellular and molecular mechanisms implicated in the co-exposure to ethanol, a dietary toxic substance, and benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), a major environmental contaminant, found during incomplete combustions. Primary rat hepatocytes exposed during 8h showed a cooperation effect between the two molecules through the depletion of membrane cholesterol by B[a]P, which promote ethanol action to destabilize lysosomes through phospholipase C-1 and facilitate apoptosis cell death. After repeated exposure during 96h of WIF-B9 cells, these two molecules provoke an early cell death by necrosis and a late apoptosis through their metabolisms. Their toxic effects implicate membrane remodeling and oxidative stress with reactive oxygen species production and modifications in iron pool.

L’inflammation et le remodelage des voies aériennes sont des processus pathologiques de signification pronostique différente qui caractérisent la plupart des maladies obstructives bronchiques, asthme et bronchopneumopathie chronique obstructive (BPCO) notamment. L’examen histologique de l’inflammation et du remodelage requiert un geste biopsique invasif qui est rarement réalisé en routine. Le développement de méthodes d’évaluation non invasives autoriserait un phénotypage plus précis des patients et le développement de thérapeutiques ciblées. Les progrès de la tomodensitométrie (TDM) ont favorisé l’essor d’une imagerie quantitative permettant des mesures morphométriques des lumières et parois bronchiques. Ces paramètres morphométriques sont corrélés aux indices fonctionnels d’obstruction mais leur manque de standardisation limite leur utilisation en routine. Nous avons étudié chez l’homme et le petit animal des paramètres TDM basés non pas sur la morphométrie mais sur la densitométrie de la paroi bronchique. Nos résultats dans l’asthme et la BPCO indiquent que l’atténuation pariétale bronchique possède une valeur diagnostique au moins équivalente à celle des paramètres morphométriques, est mieux corrélée aux indices d’obstruction fonctionnelle, et pourrait être un marqueur du remodelage dans l’asthme. Chez la souris asthmatique, les paramètres d’atténuation péribronchique extraits d’image de micro-TDM sont aussi corrélés au remodelage histologique. Le concept d’atténuation pariétale bronchique est donc prometteur pour l’étude non invasive du remodelage même si des étapes supplémentaires de validation sont nécessaires pour s’assurer de la reproductibilité des méthodes. / Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are frequent conditions characterized by two main pathological changes: bronchial inflammation and remodelling. Pathological examination requires invasive biopsy, which is rarely performed in routine. Therefore there is a great interest in developing non-invasive methods that would lead to more precise phenotyping of patients and the development of new targeted treatments. Computed tomography (CT) can provide a quantitative morphometry-based analysis of the airways. These morphometric parameters have been shown to correlate with functional obstruction but are poorly used in routine practice due to their lack of standardisation. The aim of our studies was to investigate the value of CT attenuation-based parameters in humans and animals. In asthma and COPD, we have shown that the wall attenuation value had diagnostic performances comparable to those of morphometric parameters, correlated better with functional obstructive indexes, and could be a marker of remodelling in asthma. In asthmatic mice, peribronchial attenuation values extracted from respiratory-gated micro-CT images correlate with remodeling. Therefore, the concept of bronchial wall attenuation seems to be promising for assessing non-invasively airways remodeling. Further studies are required to ensure the full reproducibility of these methods.

DNA organization is an intricate and dynamic process. The approximately two meters of DNA in a single cell is wrapped around small proteins called histones. Histones can be compacted into dense coils or loosely distributed along DNA, allowing for cells to control gene expression. This combination of DNA and histones forms chromatin. This work has focused on understanding the role of Polybromo1 (PBRM1), which is a member of a chromatin remodeling complex. PBRM1 is mutated in 3% of all human cancers and is mutated in 40% of renal clear cell carcinomas (ccRCC), the most common type of kidney cancer. Through my work characterizing PBRM1 as a tumor suppressor, we have found PBRM1 acts as a stress sensor. PBRM1 is a member of the Polybromo1 BRG1 associating factors (PBAF) complex which is a subtype of the larger BAF family of chromatin remodelers. Although BAF is essential for cell viability, knockdown of PBRM1 shows minor phenotypic changes in many cell types under standard cell culturing conditions. However, when cells without PBRM1 experience external stress, the reactive oxygen species levels in the cells are elevated and remain high compared to cells with wild type PBRM1. Depending on the cellular environment of the cell, increase in ROS can be growth promoting or growth inhibiting. PBRM1 is a structurally unique protein, containing two bromo-adjacent homologs, a high mobility group and six tandem bromodomains. Due to the multiple reader domains, it is likely PBRM1 acts to target the complex. Taking advantage of a RCCC cell line not expressing PBRM1, we re-expressed full length PBRM1 containing an asparagine to alanine mutation in each bromodomain, disrupting the acetyl-lysine binding. We have found that the bromodomains are cooperative and are facilitating binding of PBAF to chromatin. We found defects in PBRM1’s ability to suppress growth, bind to chromatin, and regulate gene expression when any of the bromodomains were mutated besides the third bromodomain. These results correlated with patient data. Using acetylated histone peptides, we have identified potential combinations of marks that PBRM1 prefers over single marks. Further work needs to be done to characterize how these histone modifications are altered under stress and they contribute to the role of PBRM1 in stress response.

No description available.

Le complexe de remodelage de la chromatine NuRD, composé des sous-unités catalytiques CHD3 et CHD4, est un régulateur épigénétique de l’expression génique. Nos résultats montrent que NuRD s’associe avec les facteurs de transcription essentiels du mélanome que sont MITF et SOX10. Cependant, malgré une association physique et une co-localisation génomique, CHD4/NuRD ne semble pas agir comme un cofacteur important pour MITF ou SOX10. Néanmoins, la répression de CHD4 conduit à un ralentissement de la prolifération et déréprime l’expression des enzymes PADI1 et PADI3 dans les cellules de mélanome ainsi que dans de nombreux types de cellules cancéreuses. Ainsi, l’induction de ces enzymes, responsables de la conversion des arginines en citrullines, entraîne la citrullination spécifique de PKM2, une enzyme glycolytique essentielle, diminuant ainsi sa sensibilité aux inhibiteurs allostériques, et donc altérant l’équilibre physiologique entre activateurs et inhibiteurs de l’enzyme. L’ensemble de ce travail de thèse a permis de mettre en évidence une nouvelle voie reliant, d’une part la régulation épigénétique de l’expression de PADI1 et PADI3 par CHD4/NuRD ainsi que la reprogrammation de la régulation allostérique de PKM2 via la citrullination d’arginines, au flux glycolytique et au contrôle de la prolifération des cellules cancéreuses d’autre part. / The Nucleosome Remodelling and Deacetylation (NuRD) complex is an epigenetic regulator of gene expression that includes two mutually exclusive ATPase subunits CHD3 and CHD4. Our results show that NuRD associates with essential melanoma cell transcription factors namely MITF and SOX10. However, despite their physical association and genomic co-localization, CHD4-NuRD does not appear to act as a cofactor for MITF or SOX10 regulated gene expression. Nevertheless, CHD4 silencing leads to a slow growth phenotype and de-represses the expression of PADI1 (Protein Arginine DeIminase 1) and PADI3, two enzymes involved in converting arginines to citrullines in melanoma and multiple types of cancer cells. Increased expression of PADI1 and PADI3 enhances citrullination of arginines within the key glycolytic regulatory enzyme PKM2 then promoting excessive glycolysis, lowering ATP levels and slowing down proliferation. PKM2 citrullination lowers its sensitivity to allosteric inhibitors thus shifting equilibrium towards allosteric activators thereby bypassing the normal physiological regulation of glycolysis. Overall, our results lead to describe a novel pathway linking, epigenetic regulation of PADI1 and PADI3 expression by CHD4/NuRD and reprogramming of PKM2 allosteric regulation through arginines citrullination, to glycolytic flux and cancer cell proliferation.

Diabetes has gained growing attendance as one of the key non communicable diseases (NCD) with the World Health Organization identifying it as the focus of the World Health Day 2016. It is reported that more than 420 million people suffer from diabetes, a number predicted to rise in the coming years. This report forms part of a broader, long term focus project that aims to establish a systems approach to type 2 diabetes (T2D), the variant that accounts for more than 90% of reported diabetes cases. The broader project objectives are to identify possible biomarkers for the onset and the progression of T2D as a precursor to enable potential future approaches to delay onset, or even reverse disease states, via active bio-compounds and/or establishment of beneficial nutritional patterns. The 6-month master’s work reported here is sub-project that focused specifically on cell level vesicle trafficking processes. These processes are believed to be crucial in understanding the formation amyloid plaques, which compromise or kill the insulin secreting beta cells. Up until now, there has been a lack of appropriate experimental techniques to directly observe this process in live cells.  Hence we have developed 2 new techniques: (i)               a method of imaging the actin and tubulin network reorganization during exocytosis of the insulin containing granules while exploring novel ways of characterizing the network. (ii)             a method of imaging the granules themselves and using particle tracking microrheology to analyze their movement patterns during stimulation with glucose. These new techniques open the door to follow up experiments which would allow development of a cell scale mathematical model or simulation correlating short term glucose dynamics to risk of amyloid plaque formation and T2D.

AimsHSPA12B is a newly discovered and endothelial-cell-specifically expressed heat shock protein. We have reported recently that overexpression of HSPA12B increased endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) expression in mouse cardiac tissues during endotoxemia. Endothelial NOS has been shown to protect heart from ischaemic injury. We hypothesized that overexpression of HSPA12B will attenuate cardiac dysfunction and remodelling after myocardial infarction (MI) through an eNOS-dependant mechanism.Methods and resultsMI was induced by permanent ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery in the transgenic mice (Tg) overexpressing hspa12b gene and its wild-type (WT) littermates. Echocardiographic analysis revealed that Tg mice exhibited improvements in cardiac dysfunction and remodelling at 1 and 4 weeks after MI. These improvements were accompanied by a significant decrease in cardiomyocyte apoptosis and increase in capillary and arteriolar densities. Significant up-regulation of eNOS, VEGF, Ang-1, and Bcl-2 was also observed in Tg hearts compared with WT hearts after MI. However, pharmacological inhibition of eNOS abolished the HSPA12B-induced decrease in cardiomyocyte apoptosis and increase in capillary formation after MI. Most importantly, inhibition of eNOS abrogated the protection of HSPA12B against cardiac dysfunction and remodelling after MI.ConclusionsThese data demonstrate for the first time that the overexpression of HSPA12B attenuates cardiac dysfunction and remodelling after MI. This action of HSPA12B was mediated, at least in part, by prevention of cardiomyocyte apoptosis and promotion of myocardial angiogenesis via an eNOS-dependent mechanism. HSPA12B could be a novel target for the management of patients with post-MI cardiac dysfunction and remodelling.

AimsHSPA12B is a newly discovered and endothelial-cell-specifically expressed heat shock protein. We have reported recently that overexpression of HSPA12B increased endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) expression in mouse cardiac tissues during endotoxemia. Endothelial NOS has been shown to protect heart from ischaemic injury. We hypothesized that overexpression of HSPA12B will attenuate cardiac dysfunction and remodelling after myocardial infarction (MI) through an eNOS-dependant mechanism.Methods and resultsMI was induced by permanent ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery in the transgenic mice (Tg) overexpressing hspa12b gene and its wild-type (WT) littermates. Echocardiographic analysis revealed that Tg mice exhibited improvements in cardiac dysfunction and remodelling at 1 and 4 weeks after MI. These improvements were accompanied by a significant decrease in cardiomyocyte apoptosis and increase in capillary and arteriolar densities. Significant up-regulation of eNOS, VEGF, Ang-1, and Bcl-2 was also observed in Tg hearts compared with WT hearts after MI. However, pharmacological inhibition of eNOS abolished the HSPA12B-induced decrease in cardiomyocyte apoptosis and increase in capillary formation after MI. Most importantly, inhibition of eNOS abrogated the protection of HSPA12B against cardiac dysfunction and remodelling after MI.ConclusionsThese data demonstrate for the first time that the overexpression of HSPA12B attenuates cardiac dysfunction and remodelling after MI. This action of HSPA12B was mediated, at least in part, by prevention of cardiomyocyte apoptosis and promotion of myocardial angiogenesis via an eNOS-dependent mechanism. HSPA12B could be a novel target for the management of patients with post-MI cardiac dysfunction and remodelling.

AimsPellino1 is an evolutionally conserved immune regulator and participates in the regulation of Toll-like receptor/interleukin-1 receptor (TLR/IL-1R)-mediated signalling. Recent studies have shown that TLR/IL-1R contributes to the left ventricular (LV) remodelling after myocardial infarction (MI). However, the role of Pellino1 in LV remodelling following MI has not been investigated. This study examined the effect of Pellino1 silencing on cardiac function and LV remodelling after MI.Methods and resultsMale C57BL/6 mice were subjected to permanent ligation of left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) to induce MI. The levels of Pellino1 were significantly increased in the myocardium 3 days and sustained for 4 weeks after MI, when compared with the sham control. Hypoxia increased Pellino1 expression in cultured cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts. To examine whether Pellino1 plays a role in MI-induced cardiac dysfunction and the LV remodelling, we suppressed the expression of Pellino1 either by intramyocardial delivery of adenovirus expressing siRNA for Pellino1 (AdsiPeli1) or by Cre-LoxP-mediated conditional deletion of Pellino1 from the myocardium. In both models, silencing of Pellino1 significantly attenuated MI-induced cardiac dysfunction, decreased scar size, and reduced collagen deposition, when compared with the control groups. Pellino1 silencing in mice also attenuated MI-induced Pellino1 E3 ligase activity, receptor-interacting protein 1 and tumor necrosis factor receptor associated factor 6 (TRAF6) ubiquitination, nuclear factor Kappa B (NF-κB) activity, cytokine production, and inflammatory cell infiltration into the myocardium when compared with the MI group.ConclusionsOur data demonstrate that Pellino1 plays an important role in the pathogenesis of MI. Targeting Pellino1 may ameliorate cardiac dysfunction and remodelling following MI.