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Review
. 2021 Feb 25:12:602330.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.602330. eCollection 2021.

The Roles of Sclerostin in Immune System and the Applications of Aptamers in Immune-Related Research

Meiheng Sun  1   2   3 , Zihao Chen  4 , Xiaoqiu Wu  1   2   3 , Yuanyuan Yu  1   2   3 , Luyao Wang  1   2   3 , Aiping Lu  1   2   3   5   6 , Ge Zhang  1   2   3 , Fangfei Li  1   2   3
Affiliations
Review

The Roles of Sclerostin in Immune System and the Applications of Aptamers in Immune-Related Research

Meiheng Sun et al. Front Immunol. .

Abstract

Wnt signaling is one of the fundamental pathways that play a major role in almost every aspect of biological systems. In addition to the well-known influence of Wnt signaling on bone formation, its essential role in the immune system also attracted increasing attention. Sclerostin, a confirmed Wnt antagonist, is also proven to modulate the development and differentiation of normal immune cells, particularly B cells. Aptamers, single-stranded (ss) oligonucleotides, are capable of specifically binding to a variety of target molecules by virtue of their unique three-dimensional structures. With in-depth study of those functional nucleic acids, they have been gradually applied to diagnostic and therapeutic area in immune diseases due to their various advantages over antibodies. In this review, we focus on several issues including the roles of Wnt signaling and Wnt antagonist sclerostin in the immune system. For the sake of understanding, current examples of aptamers applications for the immune diseases are also discussed. At the end of this review, we propose our ideas for the future research directions.

Keywords: B cell malignancies; Wnt signaling pathway; aptamers; immune system; sclerostin.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sclerostin: an inhibitor of canonical Wnt signaling pathway. Wnt-LRP5/6-Fz complex elicits a molecular cascade that transfer Axin-mediated destruction complex, which is essential to β-catenin degradation, to the plasma membrane. Increased β-catenin moves into the nucleus, where it represents the molecular mechanism that β-catenin binds to TCF/LEF, which are the main partners of β-catenin to serve the transcriptional function of canonical Wnt signaling pathway. Sclerostin inhibits Wnt signaling by binding competitively to LRP5/6, thereby promoting the degradation of β-catenin mediated by destruction complex, resulting in the interaction between TCF/LEF and repressor Groucho/TLE proteins to halt the expression of target genes.
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