Proteomic Analysis Highlights Peculiar Protein and Phosphoprotein Profiles in Dermal Fibroblasts from Celiac Disease Patients

Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune inflammatory enteropathy triggered by consuming gluten-containing cereals. A key role in its pathogenesis is played by type 2 transglutaminase, an enzyme that causes an increase in gluten immunogenicity. Celiac cells seem to present constitutive characteristics, even recognizable under a gluten-free diet, such as defects in vesicular trafficking and autophagy, protein hyperphosphorylation, and cytoskeleton rearrangement. In this work, by using an omics approach, we attempted to identify those proteins differentially expressed or differentially phosphorylated in a cell model suitable to study cell behavior in the absence of inflammation, i.e., primary cultures of dermal fibroblasts from control or CD subjects. By performing mass spectrometry analyses, we found several up- and-down expressed or phosphorylated proteins in CD samples, mainly involved in signaling, homeostatic responses, cytoskeleton organization, vesicular trafficking, and extracellular vesiculation. These proteins may represent a molecular signature of the celiac cellular phenotype and may contribute to adding new insight into the comprehension of the complex mechanisms of CD pathogenesis.