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Association between altered tryptophan metabolism, plasma aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonists, and inflammatory Chagas disease

ABSTRACT:

Chagas disease causes a cardiac illness characterized by immunoinflammatory reactions leading to myocardial fibrosis and remodeling. The development of Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy (CCC) in some patients while others remain asymptomatic is not fully understood, but dysregulated inflammatory responses are implicated. The Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) plays a crucial role in regulating inflammation. Certain tryptophan (Trp) metabolites have been identified as AhR ligands with regulatory functions.

We investigated AhR expression, agonist response, ligand production and AhR-dependent responses, such as IDO activation and regulatory T (Treg) cells induction, in two T. cruzi-infected mouse strains (B6 and Balb/c) showing different polymorphisms in AhR. Furthermore, we assessed the metabolic profile of Trp catabolites and AhR agonistic activity levels in plasma samples from patients with chronic Chagas disease (CCD) and healthy donors (HD) using a luciferase reporter assay and liquid chromatography-mass spectrophotometry (LC-MS) analysis. T. cruzi-infected B6 mice showed impaired AhR-dependent responses compared to Balb/c mice, including reduced IDO activity, kynurenine levels, Treg cell induction, CYP1A1 up-regulation and AhR expression following agonist activation. Additionally, B6 mice exhibited no detectable AhR agonist activity in plasma and displayed lower CYP1A1 up-regulation and AhR expression upon agonist activation. Similarly, CCC patients had decreased AhR agonistic activity in plasma compared to HD patients and exhibited dysregulation in Trp metabolic pathways, resulting in altered plasma metabolite profiles. Notably, patients with severe CCC specifically showed increased N-acetylserotonin levels in their plasma. The methods and findings presented here contribute to a better understanding of CCC development mechanisms and may identify potential specific biomarkers for T. cruzi infection and the severity of associated heart disease. These insights could be valuable in designing new therapeutic strategies. Ultimately, this research aims to establish the AhR agonistic activity and Trp metabolic profile in plasma as an innovative, non-invasive predictor of prognosis for chronic Chagas disease.

INSTRUMENT(S): Liquid Chromatography MS - positive

SUBMITTER: JUAN NAHUEL QUIROZ

PROVIDER: MTBLS8390 | MetaboLights | 2024-01-11

REPOSITORIES: MetaboLights

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			Action	DRS
	MTBLS8390	Other
	FILES	Other
	a_MTBLS8390_LC-MS_positive__metabolite_profiling.txt	Txt
	i_Investigation.txt	Txt
	m_MTBLS8390_LC-MS_positive__metabolite_profiling_v2_maf.tsv	Tabular

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Project description:Chagas disease causes a cardiac illness characterized by immunoinflammatory reactions leading to myocardial fibrosis and remodeling. The development of Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy (CCC) in some patients while others remain asymptomatic is not fully understood, but dysregulated inflammatory responses are implicated. The Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) plays a crucial role in regulating inflammation. Certain tryptophan (Trp) metabolites have been identified as AhR ligands with regulatory functions. We investigated AhR expression, agonist response, ligand production, and AhR-dependent responses, such as IDO activation and regulatory T (Treg) cells induction, in two T.cruzi-infected mouse strains (B6 and Balb/c) showing different polymorphisms in AhR. Furthermore, we assessed the metabolic profile of Trp catabolites and AhR agonistic activity levels in plasma samples from patients with chronic Chagas disease (CCD) and healthy donors (HD) using a luciferase reporter assay and liquid chromatography-mass spectrophotometry (LC-MS) analysis. T. cruzi-infected B6 mice showed impaired AhR-dependent responses compared to Balb/c mice, including reduced IDO activity, kynurenine levels, Treg cell induction, CYP1A1 up-regulation, and AhR expression following agonist activation. Additionally, B6 mice exhibited no detectable 34 AhR agonist activity in plasma and displayed lower CYP1A1 up-regulation and AhR expression upon agonist activation. Similarly, CCC patients had decreased AhR agonistic activity in plasma compared to HD patients and exhibited dysregulation in Trp metabolic pathways, resulting in altered plasma metabolite profiles. Notably, patients with severe CCC specifically showed increased N-acetylserotonin levels in their plasma. The methods and findings presented here contribute to a better understanding of CCC development mechanisms and may identify potential specific biomarkers for T. cruzi infection and the severity of associated heart disease. These insights could be valuable in designing new therapeutic strategies. Ultimately, this research aims to establish the AhR agonistic activity and Trp metabolic profile in plasma as an innovative, non-invasive predictor of prognosis for chronic Chagas disease.

Project description:(Abstract) Toxicogenomics has great potential for enhancing our understanding of environmental chemical toxicity, hopefully leading to better-informed human health risk assessments. This study employed toxicogenomic technology to reveal species differences in response to two prototypical aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) agonists, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congener PCB 126. Dose responses of primary cultures of rat and human hepatocytes were determined using species-specific microarrays sharing over 4,000 gene orthologs. Forty-seven human and 79 rat genes satisfied dose response criteria for both chemicals and were subjected to further analysis including the calculation of EC50 and the relative potency (REP) of PCB 126 for each gene. Only 5 responsive orthologous genes were shared between the two species, yet the geometric mean of the REPs for all rat and human modeled responsive genes were 0.06 (95% Confidence Interval (CI); 0.03-0.1) and 0.002 (95% CI; 0.001-0.005), respectively, suggesting broad species differences in the initial events that follow AHR activation but precede toxicity. This indicates that there are species differences in both the specific genes that responded and the agonist potency and relative potency for those genes. This observed insensitivity of human cells to PCB 126 is consistent with more traditional measurements of AHR activation (i.e., CYP1A1 enzyme activity) and suggests that the species difference in PCB 126 sensitivity is likely due to certain aspects of AHR function. That a species divergence also exists in this expanded AHR-regulated gene repertoire is a novel finding and should help when extrapolating animal data to humans. Experiment Overall Design: Primary hepatocyte cultures, separated into 2 pools of 3 female Sprague Dawley rats each, were treated with vehicle (0.5% DMSO), TCDD (-14 to -6.5 log10 M) , or PCB 126 (-12 to -5 log10 M) for 48h. Total RNA was extracted and screened with RG-U34A microarrays for dose response.

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Association between altered tryptophan metabolism, plasma aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonists, and inflammatory Chagas disease

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