Downregulation of a potential therapeutic target NPAS2, regulated by p53, alleviates pulmonary fibrosis by inhibiting epithelial-mesenchymal transition via suppressing HES1

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive lung disease and a severe form of pulmonary fibrosis. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of alveolar epithelial cells is induced in response to epithelial injury, which leads to the accumulation of extracellular matrix in the lung parenchyma and contributes to pulmonary fibrosis. NPAS2 (neuronal PAS domain protein 2) is significantly increased in the lung tissues of IPF patients according to microarray dataset GSE10667 and NPAS2 is downregulated in differentiated human pulmonary type 2 epithelial cells in vitro based on microarray dataset GSE3306 from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). In this study, we demonstrated that NPAS2 was increased in bleomycin (BLM)- induced fibrotic lungs in mice. Knockdown of NPAS2 inhibited EMT in primary mouse lung alveolar type 2 epithelial (pmATII) cells and human lung alveolar type 2 epithelial cell line A549 cells under BLM challenge in vitro. Moreover, the silence of NPAS2 alleviated the BLM-induced pulmonary fibrosis in a murine model. Mechanistically, NPAS2 promotes EMT through positively regulating hairy and enhancer of split 1 (HES1) expression. In this study, we present novel findings that have not been previously reported, emphasizing that p53 transcriptionally activates NPAS2 in ATII cells and overexpression of NPAS2 weakens the effects of TP53 knockdown on EMT of pmATII and A549 cells. Our results suggest NPAS2 is a novel target gene of p53 in regulating BLM-mediated EMT in ATII cells and pulmonary fibrosis.