// Xiao-Wei Zhang 1 , Su Mi 1 , Zhe Li 1 , Ji-Chao Zhou 1 , Jing Xie 1 , Fang Hua 1 , Ke Li 2 , Bing Cui 1 , Xiao-Xi Lv 1 , Jiao-Jiao Yu 1 , Zhuo-Wei Hu 1 1 Molecular Immunology and Pharmacology Group, State Key Laboratory of Bioactive Substances and Functions of Natural Medicines, Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China 2 Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China Correspondence to: Zhuo-Wei Hu, email: huzhuowei@imm.ac.cn Keywords: cirrhosis, inflammation, liver injury, neutralizing antibody, p62 Received: August 23, 2016 Accepted: December 01, 2016 Published: December 27, 2016 ABSTRACT Interleukin-17A has been identified as a driver of hepatic stellate cell activation and plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of hepatic fibrosis. However, the underlining fibrosis-promoting mechanism of IL-17A is far from understood. Here we aimed to define whether hepatocytes directly respond to IL-17A stimulation and are associated with the development of hepatic fibrosis. The functional significance of IL-17A was evaluated in bile duct ligation (BDL) or thioacetamide (TAA) injection-induced mouse models of hepatic fibrosis. Human cirrhosis and control tissues were obtained from the patients with cirrhosis who received an open surgical repair process. Neutralizing IL-17A promoted the resolution of BDL or TAA-induced acute or chronic inflammation and fibrosis, resulted in a shift of the suppressive immune response in fibrotic liver toward a Th1-type immune response, and restored autophagy activity in both cholestatic and hepatotoxic liver injury induced fibrotic liver tissues, which was accompanied by a significant inhibition of STAT3 phosphorylation. Moreover, we found that IL-17A stimulated the concentration-and time-dependent phosphorylation of STAT3 in AML-12 liver cells. Blocking STAT3 with a specific inhibitor STATTIC or STAT3 siRNA protected from the IL-17A-induced autophagy suppression in AML-12 cells, indicating that STAT3 mediates IL-17A-suppressed autophagy. Administration of IL-10, which activated STAT3 and inhibited autophagy, reversed the therapeutic effect of IL-17A antagonism in vivo . Our study suggests that the IL-17A/STAT3 signaling pathway plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of hepatic fibrosis through suppressing hepatocellular autophagy and that blocking this pathway may provide therapeutic benefits for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis.
