Zeb1 facilitates corneal epithelial wound healing by maintaining corneal epithelial cell viability and mobility.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Zhang, Yingnan; Do, Khoi K.; Wang, Fuhua; Lu, Xiaoqin; Liu, John Y.; Li, Chi; Ceresa, Brian P.; Zhang, Lijun; Dean, Douglas C.; Liu, Yongqing
- Source
- Communications Biology. 4/20/2023, Vol. 6 Issue 1, p1-12. 12p.
- Subject
- *WOUND healing
*CORNEA injuries
*EPITHELIAL cells
*CORNEA
*CELL survival
*EPITHELIAL-mesenchymal transition
- Language
- ISSN
- 2399-3642
The cornea is the outmost ocular tissue and plays an important role in protecting the eye from environmental insults. Corneal epithelial wounding provokes pain and fear and contributes to the most ocular trauma emergency assessments worldwide. ZEB1 is an essential transcription factor in development; but its roles in adult tissues are not clear. We identify Zeb1 is an intrinsic factor that facilitates corneal epithelial wound healing. In this study, we demonstrate that monoallelic deletion of Zeb1 significantly expedites corneal cell death and inhibits corneal epithelial EMT-related cell migration upon an epithelial debridement. We provide evidence that Zeb1-regulation of corneal epithelial wound healing is through the repression of genes required for Tnfa-induced epithelial cell death and the induction of genes beneficial for epithelial cell migration. We suggest utilizing TNF-α antagonists would reduce TNF/TNFR1-induced cell death in the corneal epithelium and inflammation in the corneal stroma to help corneal wound healing. Zeb1 facilitates corneal epithelial wound healing by repressing TNFα-induced epithelial cell death genes and upregulating epithelial to mesenchymal transition and extracellular matrix-related genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]