Patent Abstract:
a method for prophylaxis or treatment of a mammal , particularly human , at risk for a fibrogenic disorder is disclosed . the compositions and methods of the invention are directed both to treatments for existing fibrogenic disorders and prevention thereof . such disorders include , but are not limited to , connective tissue diseases , such as scleroderma , polymyositis , systemic lupus erythematosis and rheumatoid arthristis , and other fibrotic disorders , including liver cirrhosis , keloid formation , interstitial nephritis and pulmonary fibrosis . a therapeutic composition according to the invention includes , as a therapeutic agent , an inhibitor of a collagen promoter in a pharmaceutically acceptable inert carrier vehicle , preferably for local , and particularly topical , application . exemplary inhibitors include those that interfere with heat shock protein 90 chaperone function , e . g ., the specific inhibitor geldanamycin or other known hsp90 inhibitors such as macbecin i and ii , herbimycin , radcicol and novobiocin .

Detailed Description:
fibroblasts grown from dermal scleroderma biopsies have been shown to maintain a fibrogenic phenotype for several passages in culture ( 8 , 9 ). since these cells maintain a disease - like phenotype , they are a useful model system for scleroderma skin and , therefore , are appropriate candidates for analysis of differential gene expression . in the work leading to the - invention , microarrays were utilized to characterize the gene expression pattern in the scleroderma fibroblast model system . the goal of such experiments was to characterize individual genes from the scleroderma expression fingerprint in order to identify those which might lie in a pathway of expressed genes responsible for the scleroderma phenotype — excessive matrix deposition . initial differential display studies were expanded using densely printed microarrays on nylon filter membranes . in the current work , filter membranes containing large arrays of expressed sequence tags ( ests ) were probed with radioactively labeled mrna isolated from independent scleroderma and healthy dermal fibroblast lines . these filters are commercially available and contain over 18 , 000 different clones each spotted in duplicate . four different scleroderma lesional , non - lesional and healthy lines — 12 in all — were utilized as sources of rna . several genes were consistently overexpressed or underexpressed in the scleroderma lines compared to the healthy controls . among those that were overexpressed was the gene for heat shock protein 90 alpha ( hsp90 ). because of the 97 % homology between the genes for hsp90α and hsp90β , these genes were chosen for further study . hsp90 is a cytosolic protein conserved in species as diverse as bacteria and primates . one function of hsp90 is to protect proteins from aggregating during thermal stress ( 12 ). another important function is as a hormone receptor chaperone . genetic studies in yeast ( 13 , 14 ) and molecular studies in higher cells ( 15 ) show that hsp90 is required for hormone receptors to bind hormone . without hsp90 , or in the presence of the specific inhibitor of hsp90 , the benzamycin ansiquinone geldanamycin ( 16 ), hormone receptor signal response fails . the atp binding site on hsp90 ( 17 ) is required for normal chaperone function . geldanamycin binds to the atp binding site in hsp90 ( 18 ) and thus may block hormone receptor function by starving hsp90 of atp . many different hormone receptors can bind hsp90 , including those for estrogen ( 19 ), progesterone ( 20 ), and aryl hydrocarbons ( 21 ) ( including dioxin ( 22 )). hsp90 also exhibits chaperone activity for other signal transduction molecules , including casein kinase ii ( 23 ), pp60 v - src ( 24 ), eif2α kinase ( 25 ). studies using null mutations of hsp90 in drosophila ( hsp83 ) show that it modulates raf signaling ( 26 ) and signaling by the sevenless receptor tyrosine kinase ( 27 ). signal transduction by tgf - β may play an important role in the scleroderma phenotype . tgf - β is a potent fibrogenic cytokine that stimulates the transcription and synthesis of multiple matrix - encoding genes ( 28 ). the tgf - β family is thought to transduce its signal through a family of cytosolic proteins known as smads ( 29 ). tgf - β binds to the type ii tgf - β receptor , which propagates the signal through the type i receptor to smad . the family of human smad proteins includes at least 9 members ( 30 ). smad 2 or smad 3 proteins are transiently associated with the type i receptor where they are activated by phosphorylation . activated smad2 or smad 3 may bind to smad 4 and be transported from the cytoplasm to the nucleus . smad 3 and smad 4 have been shown to bind specific dna sequences ( 31 ), including sequences in promoters that are activated by tgf - β . in the experiments described below , evidence that hsp90 is overexpressed in scleroderma fibroblasts is presented . it was shown , additionally , that hsp90 overexpression induces the activity of a collagen reporter . each of three different heat shock overexpression constructs caused a similar induction of collagen promoter activity . since these three heat shock proteins are also part of a complex that binds the steroid hormone receptor , it is interesting that all three induce collagen . also shown was that heat shock per se causes a similar induction of endogenous collagen expression in 3t3 cells . in addition , hsp90 overexpression reduced the transcription of a reporter driven by the human mmp1 promoter . these effects show that hsp90 overexpression has a physiological role in the accumulation of collagen in scleroderma , either by inducing its production or reducing its degradation . an increased level of binding of heat shock factor 1 ( hsf1 ) to the consensus hsf1 binding site in scleroderma fibroblasts was also found . the hsf1 transcription factor is activated by a variety of stresses , including heat , whereupon it forms a homotrimer polypeptide and migrates to the nucleus . in the nucleus , it binds to promoters of several heat shock proteins and activates their transcription . whether increased activity of this transcription factor is responsible for the increased levels of hsp90 mrna in scleroderma fibroblasts is unknown , however , since other stress - induced transcription factors may play a more important role in hsp90 transcription . nonetheless , it is interesting that scleroderma cells appear to activate hsf1 more readily than healthy cells after the brief 1 . 5 hour heat shock treatment . these experiments also show that hsp90 overexpression or inhibition , respectively , enhances or blocks tgf - β signal transduction . this is relevant to the scleroderma condition since high tgf - β levels have been found in the bronchial alveolar lavage fluid of scleroderma patients with pulmonary fibrosis ( 32 ), and elevated levels of the tgf - β receptor ( both types i and ii ) have been described in scleroderma fibroblasts ( 33 ). evidence is also provided here that hsp90 acts on the tgf - β pathway by altering smad function . finally , through a combination of a new method of mouse tail vein injection with an overexpression / reporter - promoter system , in vivo evidence is generated that hsp90 stimulates the tgf - β signal transduction pathway . patient biopsies , fibroblast culture and rna isolation were performed as previously described ( 10 ). biopsies were taken with patient consent and the approval of the institutional review board for human studies at boston university medical center . lesional skin was clinically identified and biopsies taken from the leading edge of the lesion , usually the forearm . scleroderma or healthy fibroblast polyadenylated rna was purified from 200 - 500 μg of total rna using the polya spin mrna isolation kit from new england biolabs ( beverly , mass .). version 1 . 0 human est filter arrays were purchased from genome systems , inc . hybridization and washing using 32 p - labeled mrna was performed in roller bottles following the manufacturer &# 39 ; s recommendations with the following exceptions . two μg of polya rna were labeled using avian reverse transcriptase ( promega , madison , wis .) at 42 ° instead of murine reverse transcriptase . purification of incorporated from unincorporated counts was performed as suggested in the genome systems &# 39 ; protocol . the specific activity of the probe was measured and the total amount of radioactivity in the hybridization adjusted to 1 × 10 6 cpm per ml of hybridization fluid . five μg of cot1 human genomic dna ( gibco brl , gaithersburg , md .) was also included in the hybridization mixture . hybridization was performed overnight , and washed filters were exposed to phosphoimage cassettes overnight ( molecular dynamics , san diego , calif .). because the filters were too large for the cassettes , each filter was rotated 180 ° and exposed a second time . thus , the complete filter was represented by two images . two filters were used 6 times each to image a total of 12 mrna samples . the filters were washed repeatedly using 15 - minute soaks in 95 ° deionized water until the signal measured by a geiger counter was negligible . the soak procedure was repeated 3 - 6 times to achieve negligible geiger reading . the completeness of the washing procedure was confirmed by exposing washed filters to phosphoimage cassettes overnight . the position of each spot on the filter is uniquely identified . with the position , the user can obtain an accession number and a partial sequence of the dna clone . the manufacturer of the filter also supplies samples of the clones that were spotted on the filter . clone intensities were determined directly from the phosphoimages using datamachine software ( 34 ). the clone corresponding to hsp90 - α was purchased as an est from genome systems . the clone was originally misidentified by the manufacturer , but re - sequencing showed it to be hsp90 - α , and hybridization of the clone to the filter confirmed it was in fact hsp90 spotted at that position in the array . sequencing was performed at the boston university dna / protein sequencing core . northern analysis of hsp90 to total rna from scleroderma and healthy fibroblasts was performed as previously described ( 10 ). a mouse monoclonal anti - hsp90 antibody ( ac88 ) was obtained from stressgen ( victoria , bc ). scleroderma and healthy human dermal fibroblasts were applied to chamber slides using a cytospin apparatus and fixed for 1 minute with 4 % paraformaldehyde in pbs . the ac88 antibody was diluted 1 : 500 in pbs with 5 % dehydrated milk and incubated in the washed , fixed chambers for 1 hour at room temperature . samples were washed 4 times ( 5 minutes each ) with pbs and a horseradish peroxidase - conjugated sheep anti - mouse secondary antibody ( amersham , arlington heights , ill . ; diluted 1 : 3000 in pbs ) was added for 30 minutes at room temperature . chambers were washed and enzyme activity visualized using trueblue ( kirkegaard and perry laboratories , bethesda , md .) and following the manufacturer &# 39 ; s protocol . the complete open reading frame of hsp70 , corresponding to genbank accession number m11717 , was obtained from atcc ( manassas , va . ); the complete open reading frame of hsp90 - α , corresponding to riken # 1127 , was obtained from riken gene bank with the permission of dr . kasunari yokoyama ( 35 ). this is the full - length clone whose sequence matched that of the clone ‘ a ’ in fig1 b . the complete open reading frame of hsp90 - α , corresponding to genbank accession number m16660 , was obtained from atcc . each of these three open reading frames was excised and cloned into the expression pbkrsv ( stratagene , san diego , calif .). transient transfections were performed using lipofectamine ( gibco brl ) as follows : 10 μg ( total ) of indicated plasmid dna was mixed with 30 μl of lipofectamine and 500 μl of serum - free dmem ( gibco ). this mixture was incubated at room temperature for 20 minutes . ten cm dishes of sub - confluent 3t3 fibroblasts were rinsed with pbs , and 5 ml of serum free dmem added to each dish . the dna / lipofectamine mixture was added to each dish and incubated in the 37 ° co 2 incubator for 4 hours . ten ml of dmem with 15 % serum was added and plates were incubated overnight . medium was replaced with 10 % serum at 24 hours and extracts of cells were harvested at 48 hours . cell extracts were obtained using passive lysis buffer ( promega ) and assays were performed according to the promega protocol for pgl3 luciferase vectors . protein concentrations of all extracts were determined and each luciferase reading is normalized for protein concentration . the 4 . 7 kb human mmp1 promoter driving luciferase was a gift of constance brinckerhoff ( dartmouth medical school ) ( 36 ). the 804 bp human type i collagen promoter driving luciferase was a gift from russel widom ( boston university ). this construct , − 804hcol - luc , contains a region of the type i alpha1 human collagen promoter from − 804 to + 114 bp . the 3tp lux construct , consisting of three ap1 sites and the plasminogen activator inhibitor promoter ( 37 , 38 ), was a gift from mikhail panchenko ( boston university ). the 4 . 5 kb protease nexin 1 promoter driving luciferase ( 39 ) was a gift from denis guttridge ( university of north carolina , chapel hill ). geldanamycin was a generous gift of the national cancer institute . geldanamycin was dissolved in dimethylsulfoxide ( dmso ) and used at a final concentration of 2 μm except where indicated otherwise . dmso without geldanamycin was added as the carrier control for all experiments using geldanamycin . nuclear extracts of 3t3 fibroblasts were obtained using standard methods ( 40 ). protein concentrations of extracts were determined using the bca reagent ( pierce ). double stranded oligonucleotides corresponding to the 26 bp consensus smad binding element ( sbe ) were generated ( 31 ). the probes were end - labeled using γ - 32 p - atp and t4 polynucleotide kinase . electrophoretic mobility shift assays ( emsa ) were performed using 5 μg nuclear extract , 1 μl poly di / dc ( 1 mg / ml ), 0 . 1 ng of labeled probe ( in 1 μl ), and buffer g to achieve a final volume of 10 μl . buffer g consists of 20 mm hepes ( ph 7 . 6 ), 100 mm kcl , 0 . 2 mm edta and 20 % glycerol . extracts and oligo were incubated 15 minutes at room temperature before adding loading buffer and running on a non - denaturing gel . oct - 1 duplex oligonucleotides were obtained from santa cruz biotechnology , inc . incubation of the extract and labeled sbe oligonucleotides was effectively competed with 100 - fold molar excess of cold nucleotide . double stranded oligonucleotides corresponding to the hsf1 ( heat shock factor 1 ) binding site ( 5 ′- gcc tcg aat gtt cgc gaa gtt tcg and 5 ′- cga aac ttc gcg aac att cga ggc ) were generated and the emsa was performed essentially as described in goldenberg et al . ( 41 ). tail veins of c57 / bl mice were injected with 10 μg of total dna and transit lipid complex following the procedure of the transit manufacturer ( panvera , madison wis .). in brief , dna was mixed with lipid complex , incubated at room temperature , and diluted with a volume of dilution buffer equal to 1 - tenth the animal weight ( e . g ., 3 mls for a 30 g animal .) mice were injected with 5 μg of the tgf - β - sensitive reporter p3tplux and 5 μg of either a control vector ( pbkrsv ) or our hsp90 overexpression vector ( pbkrsvhsp90 ). mouse organs were harvested within 24 hours . liver tissue was dounce homogenized in 0 . 5 mls of reporter lysis buffer ( promega , madison , wis .). the extract was spun for 5 minutes at 4 degrees to remove insoluble material . the supernatant was assayed using the luciferase assay kit ( promega , madison , wis . ): 5 μl of suspension was added to 100 μl of luciferase assay reagent . the following examples are presented to illustrate the advantages of the present invention and to assist one of ordinary skill in making and using the same . these examples are not intended in any way otherwise to limit the scope of the disclosure . polyadenylated mrna was purified from healthy and diseased human dermal fibroblasts . cells were obtained from both clinically lesional and non - lesional skin of four systemic sclerosis patients and from 4 healthy individuals . radioactive labeled cdna made from the mrna was used to probe commercially available filters containing 18 , 432 pairs of robotically spotted dna samples ( fig1 a ). filters were exposed to phosphoimage plates , and , initially , a visual inspection was performed to identify positions of clones that were differentially expressed in scleroderma fibroblasts . more than 30 clones were found that were apparently overexpressed in scleroderma fibroblasts and more than 30 that were expressed more highly in the healthy lines . eighteen of these clones were purchased and sequenced . approximately half of these 18 sequences did not match the putative sequences predicted by the supplier . ( however , when these clones were labeled and hybridized to the original filter , 17 of them hybridized to the appropriate position .) fig1 b shows a pattern of clones consistently overexpressed in scleroderma fibroblasts . the figure shows the same region of filters that had been probed either with mrna from healthy dermal fibroblasts ( panels n - 96 - 05 , n - 96 - 02 and n - 92 - 04 ) or mrna from lesional scleroderma fibroblasts ( panels 96 - 02 - a , 97 - 03 - a and 97 - 02 - a ). the panels show two clones ( 4 spots ) which are not differentially expressed , labeled r , or reference clones . the panels also show three clones that are much more highly expressed in the scleroderma fibroblasts . these three pairs of spots are designated a , b and c . clone a was sequenced and its sequence corresponded to heat shock protein 90 alpha ( hsp90α ). northern analysis of total rna from cultured scleroderma and healthy human dermal fibroblasts verified the differential expression predicted by the filter array results . fig2 shows the northern results . lesional scleroderma lines were derived from biopsies of areas of patients &# 39 ; skin that contained phenotypically thickened tissues . non - lesional scleroderma lines are derived from biopsies of areas of patients &# 39 ; skin that were phenotypically healthy . the northern analysis shows that hsp90 is overexpressed in both lesional ( l ) and non - lesional ( n ) fibroblasts derived from biopsies of three independent scleroderma patients ( p1 , p2 , and p3 ). only one of the 6 lines derived from biopsies of healthy individuals ( n1 - n6 ) exhibited any hsp90 signal . immunocytochemistry on cultured scleroderma and healthy human dermal cells showed that hsp90 protein levels reflected the differential expression of the mrna . fig3 shows immunocytochemical staining of three healthy human dermal lines ( panels a , b , c ) and three lesional scleroderma fibroblast lines ( panels d , e , f ) using a monoclonal anti - hsp90 antibody , ac88 . the scleroderma lines showed intense staining while the healthy lines showed little if any signal . in addition to examining the expression of hsp90 in scleroderma and healthy human dermal fibroblasts , the expression and activity of the factor thought to be of primary importance in the induction of heat shock proteins , heat shock factor 1 ( hsf1 ) ( 41 ) was examined . this cytoplasmic protein responds to heat shock by forming a trimer and translocating to the nucleus , where it binds heat shock sensitive elements to regulate transcription ( 42 , 43 ). the amount of hsf1 dna binding activity was determined by performing emsa assays on two different healthy dermal fibroblast lines and on two different scleroderma fibroblast lines . dna binding sequences were synthesized based on previously published hsf1 dna binding data ( 41 ). the results show that the basal level of hsf1 dna binding activity in the nucleus of scleroderma cells is slightly higher than that in healthy fibroblasts ( fig4 , lanes 2 - 5 ). however , the level of hsf1 dna binding activity after a brief , 1 . 5 hour , heat shock at 42 ° is 144 % higher in scleroderma cells ( fig4 , lanes 7 - 10 ). in the brief heat shock period used , there was no significant increase in the hsf1 dna binding activity in the healthy cells . there was , however , a 48 % increase in the level of hsf1 dna binding activity in the scleroderma cells with heat shock . these results suggest that scleroderma cells exhibit both a higher basal level of hsf1dna binding activity and an increased induction of this activity with heat shock . collagen transcription activity was examined in a co - transfection assay utilizing an 804 bp proximal region of the human type i collagen promoter driving a luciferase reporter . hsp90 - α , hsp90 - β , hsp70 overexpression constructs or an empty vector control were co - transfected with the collagen promoter / reporter . fig5 shows that in mouse nih 3t3 fibroblasts each of the three heat shock genes caused more than a 2 - fold increase in collagen promoter activity compared to the empty vector which serves as the backbone for the overexpression constructs . the bars represent data from three transfections , each assayed in duplicate . net matrix accumulation in scleroderma might be caused either by increased synthesis or decreased degradation of collagen . fig6 shows the results of an experiment designed to examine whether overexpression of hsp90 had reciprocal effects on collagen and collagenase ( human mmp1 ) expression . co - transfection of hsp90 - α with a 4 . 7 kb fragment of the human mmp1 promoter driving luciferase shows that hsp90 caused an 8 - fold decrease in collagenase promoter activity in 3t3 fibroblasts . these results also indicate that hsp90 overexpression does not indiscriminately activate promoters . rather , hsp90 both activates and represses different promoters in the same cell line . the chaperone function of hsp90 is dependent on the hydrolysis of atp ( 44 ). geldanamycin , a benzoquinone ansamycin antibiotic , specifically inhibits hsp90 by binding to its atp binding site ( 18 ). geldanamycin was examined to determine whether its inhibition of hsp90 affected tgf - β activation of collagen transcription in mouse 3t3 and human dermal fibroblasts . endogenous collagen message levels were used as a measure of tgf - β signal transduction . the northern blots in fig7 shows the effect of geldanamycin on collagen message levels in the absence or presence of tgf - β . the top panel ( fig7 a ) shows the effect in mouse 3t3 cells and the middle panel ( fig7 b ) in healthy human dermal fibroblasts . the left 4 lanes of this panel show , in the absence of serum , that geldanamycin reduces the basal level of the collagen transcript . with tgf - β , the level of the endogenous collagen transcript is increased approximately 6 - fold . however , when geldanamycin and tgf - β are added together , the inhibitory effect of geldanamycin dominates . thus , despite the 6 - fold increase in collagen due to tgf - β , the addition of geldanamycin still reduces the collagen transcript level below baseline . the results in the presence of serum ( right 4 lanes ) are similar . the endogenous collagen transcript shows only a 2 - fold increase with tgf - β in the presence of serum , presumably because cells have already acclimated to tgf - β or a related stimulus in the serum itself . however , geldanamycin alone or geldanamycin in the presence of tgf - β still causes a reduction of collagen transcript to below baseline . the middle panel ( fig7 b ) shows an analogous experiment using primary cultured healthy human dermal fibroblasts . although the induction of collagen in human cells by tgf - β is reduced , the results follow the same trends as with mouse 3t3 fibroblasts . as before , geldanamycin alone reduces collagen synthesis and the induction of collagen by tgf - β is completely blocked by geldanamycin . this panel also shows a control hybridization of the blot using a labeled gapdh probe . the gapdh message level showed no variation , either with tgf - β or with geldanamycin . as shown in the bottom panel ( fig7 c ), the same filter was also stained with methylene blue to identify rna before hybridization . this staining revealed the 28 s and 18 s ribosomal bands as indicated , along with a faint smear which represents the rest of the rna in each lane . as with the gapdh , there was no indication of non - specific changes in message level either with the addition of geldanamycin , tgf - β or both . these controls suggest that the effect of geldanamycin on collagen message level is not a result of a general toxicity . geldanamycin blocks the tgf - β - activated 3tp - lux promoter and has no effect on the pn1 promoter since geldanamycin blocked the activation of the collagen promoter by tgf - β , the effect of geldanamycin on other promoters sensitive or insensitive to tgf - β was investigated . mouse nih 3t3 cells were tranfected with the 3tplux vector , which is known to be very sensitive to tgf - β , or a vector that contains a 4 . 5 kb portion of the protease nexin 1 promoter driving luciferase . the pn1 promoter has not previously been shown to exhibit any sensitivity to tgf - β . however , previous studies had shown that pn1 is overexpressed in scleroderma fibroblasts and in scleroderma skin ( 10 ). transfected cells were exposed to a 24 hour treatment of geldanamycin , tgf - β or both . cells were then harvested and assayed for luciferase activity . fig8 shows that the addition of geldanamycin slightly reduces the level of expression of the tgf - β - sensitive promoter in the 3tplux construct . as expected , tgf - β by itself resulted in a 3 . 5 - fold induction of the activity of this promoter . this induction , however , was completely blocked when geldanamycin and tgf - β were added simultaneously . the fig . also shows that tgf - β has little effect on the expression of the pn1 promoter . geldanamycin neither reduces the basal level of activity of this promoter nor reduces the activity of this promoter in the presence of tgf - β . in fact , it seems that geldanamycin may exert a small induction on the activity of the pn1 promoter . these results , together with the data on collagen promoter inhibition in fig7 , suggest that the effect of geldanamycin on promoter inhibition is somewhat specific for promoters that are activated by tgf - β . neither the pn1 nor the gapdh promoters are blocked by the addition of geldanamycin . however , the tgf - β - sensitive promoters in the 3tplux construct and the collagen gene are both subject to inhibition by geldanamycin . these facts led to a consideration of whether hsp90 overexpression or geldanamycin inhibition of hsp90 may function on the tgf - β signaling pathway . hsp90 induces the expression of p3tp - lux when transiently expressed in vivo to investigate further the role of hsp90 in tgf - β signal transduction , a novel method of tail vein injection was employed . tail vein injection of either naked dna or dna complexed in lipophilic moieties results in high levels of expression of the transgene in internal organs , most prominently in the liver ( 45 - 47 ). expression levels peak between 8 and 24 hours after injection , making this a rapid method to assess gene activity in vivo without resorting to the use of a large number of mice as required in traditional transgenic studies . while previous studies examined the expression of a single reporter , this study expanded that work by co - injecting both a promoter - reporter and an overexpression plasmid . in this study , 5 μg of tgf - β - sensitive reporter plasmid ( p3tp - lux ) was co - injected with 5 μg of either an empty control vector ( pbkrsv ) or a plasmid that overexpresses hsp90 - α ( pbkrsvhsp90 ). generally , 3 ml of a dna - lipophilic agent mixture were injected as detailed in experimental procedures . in pilot studies , luciferase activities were measured in extracts from heart , lung , thymus , liver , kidney and spleen . there was very low expression in all organs except liver . in subsequent experiments , luciferase activity was measured only in extracts of liver tissue , and always within 16 - 24 hours after the injection . fig9 shows that the 3tplux reporter was significantly expressed only when hsp90 was co - expressed with the reporter . hsp90 expression induced the reporter by at least five - fold in all cases . in some cases , hsp90 induced the reporter several hundred fold . these results complement the earlier data , which demonstrate that inhibiting hsp90 blocks 3tplux expression ( fig8 ) and blocks the tgf - β response of the endogenous collagen gene ( fig7 ). further studies should reveal whether the overexpression of hsp90 in the liver also induces the expression of endogenous transcripts that are activated by tgf - β . geldanamycin inhibits activation of a smad - controlled promoter and decreases smad dna binding to examine whether the effect of geldanamycin was exerted on smads , the signal transduction protein for tgf - β , a smad controlled reporter plasmid , was constructed identically to a previously reported vector ( 31 ). smad 3 and smad 4 bind to specific sequences which were cloned into the pgl3 luciferase reporter vector , which otherwise had a minimal promoter . the smad - controlled reporter or the pgl3pv control plasmid were transfected into 3t3 fibroblasts in the presence or absence of increasing concentrations of geldanamycin . fig1 demonstrates that smad binding sequences cause a dramatic increase in reporter transcription even in the absence of exogenously supplied tgf - β . this suggests that 3t3 fibroblasts have a considerable baseline level of active smad , a finding that has also been reported in melanoma cells ( 48 ). geldanamycin reduced smad - dependent transcription by two - thirds . this suggests that geldanamycin prevents the smad signaling by either preventing the activation of smad or preventing translocation of active smad to the nucleus . electrophoretic mobility shift assays were performed to examine whether geldanamycin reduced the level of smad dna - binding activity in nuclear extracts . as before , cells were also subjected to tgf - β or tgf - β and geldanamycin together . in this experiment ( fig1 a ), cells were pretreated for 1 hour with geldanamycin and then given a brief , 15 - minute treatment with tgf - β prior to harvesting nuclear extracts for binding . the level of smad bound to its smad binding element was modestly reduced relative to control by the 1 hour treatment with 20 μm geldanamycin ( compare the first and second lanes ). tgf - β , as expected , caused a modest increase in nuclear smad after a 15 minute treatment . this level of increase , however , was reduced to below the control by the treatment with geldanamycin before the addition of tgf - β ( fourth lane ). by contrast , the level of binding of smad from 3t3 nuclear extracts to the oct1 binding site ( fig1 b ) was not significantly changed in any of the concentrations of geldanamycin during a 24 hour treatment . the results reported here show that compounds capable of interfering with the activity of a collagen promotor are good candidates for prophylaxis or treatment of scleroderma and other fibrogenic diseases or disorders . the hsp90 - α chaperone function inhibitors described above have been shown to be strong inhibitors of tgf - β - induced expression of reporters under the control of the collagen promoter . therefore , they will be very useful in therapeutic compositions and methods for treating patients with , or believed to be at risk of acquiring , fibrogenic disorders . the therapeutic compositions may be administered topically , orally , or parenterally , ( e . g ., intranasally , subcutaneously , intramuscularly , intravenously , or intra - arterially ) by routine methods in pharmaceutically acceptable inert carrier substances . for example , the therapeutic compositions of the invention may be administered locally by direct application in a carrier vehicle , by on - site delivery using micelles , gels or liposomes , or in a sustained release formulation using a biodegradable biocompatible polymer . the therapeutic agents can be administered , e . g ., locally , in a dosage of 0 . 05 μg / kg / day to 10 μg / kg / day ( and preferably 0 . 25 μg / kg / day to 2 . 5 μg / kg / day ) for a total of , e . g ., 50 μg / day for a 70 kg human patient . optimal dosage and modes of administration can readily be determined by conventional protocols . preferred inhibitors according to the invention include known inhibitors of hsp90 - α function , and in particular , geldanamycin . since geldanamycin is a small organic molecule , it is readily amenable to a number of modifications , as is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art . such modifications can include , but not be limited to , additions of carbonyl , amine , hydroxyl and other groups to the reactive sites already on geldanamycin , including the oxygen and nitrogen positions . the purpose of such modifications is , e . g ., to enhance drug uptake in human and animal systems as well as to enhance the effectiveness of the drug in blocking the tgf - β signaling pathway and in blocking the production of collagen and other matrix components . three systems that can be used to measure the effectiveness of such modifications or , in general , to screen candidate inhibitors , include : ( 1 ) a mouse fibroblast - derived cell line stably transfected with a tgf - β - responsive promoter driving a luciferase reporter ( p3tp - lux ). such a cell line gives a 10 - 30 - fold increase in luciferase activity in response to tgf - β . this increase is known to be substantially blocked by geldanamycin , and the effectiveness of a candidate inhibitor can be compared to the activity of geldanamycin as a positive control . ( 2 ) mouse and human cell lines stably transfected with a collagen promoter driving luciferase and / or green fluorescent protein reporters . these cell lines can be used to demonstrate the effect of geldanamycin , its derivatives and related candidate inhibitors of hsp90 in blocking the tgf - β - induced expression of reporters under the control of the collagen promoter . ( 3 ) northern analysis of endogenous collagen message can be can be carried out on healthy human dermal fibroblasts to measure the effect of geldanamycin , derivatives and related inhibitors on the transcription of the endogenous collagen message . while the present invention has been described in conjunction with a preferred embodiment , one of ordinary skill , after reading the foregoing specification , will be able to effect various changes , substitutions of equivalents , and other alterations to the compositions and methods set forth herein . it is therefore intended that the protection granted by letters patent hereon be limited only by the definitions contained in the appended claims and equivalents thereof . 1 . medsger , t . a ., jr . ( 1994 ) clinics in dermatology 12 ( 2 ), 207 - 16 . 2 . tan , f . k ., stivers , d . n ., arnett , f . c ., chakraborty , r ., howard , r ., and reveille , j . d . 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