Granzyme K activates the entire complement cascade

Abstract

Granzymes are a family of serine proteases that are mainly expressed by CD8⁺ T cells, natural killer cells and innate-like lymphocytes¹. Although their primary function is thought to be the induction of cell death in virally infected cells and tumours, accumulating evidence indicates that some granzymes can elicit inflammation by acting on extracellular substrates¹. We previously found that most tissue CD8⁺ T cells in rheumatoid arthritis synovium, and in inflamed organs for some other diseases, express granzyme K (GZMK)², a tryptase-like protease with poorly defined function. Here, we show that GZMK can activate the complement cascade by cleaving the C2 and C4 proteins. The nascent C4b and C2b fragments form a C3 convertase that cleaves C3, enabling the assembly of a C5 convertase that cleaves C5. The resulting convertases generate all the effector molecules of the complement cascade: the anaphylatoxins C3a and C5a, the opsonins C4b and C3b, and the membrane attack complex. In rheumatoid arthritis synovium, GZMK is enriched in regions with abundant complement activation, and fibroblasts are the main producers of complement proteins that serve as substrates for GZMK-mediated complement activation. Furthermore, Gzmk-deficient mice are significantly protected from inflammatory disease, exhibiting reduced arthritis and dermatitis, with concomitant decreases in complement activation. Our findings describe the discovery of a previously unidentified mechanism of complement activation that is driven entirely by lymphocyte-derived GZMK. Given the widespread abundance of GZMK-expressing T cells in tissues in chronic inflammatory diseases, GZMK-mediated complement activation is likely to be an important contributor to tissue inflammation in multiple disease contexts.