Project description:The objective of this study is to examine IL-11-induced mechanisms of inflammatory cell migration to the CNS. We report that IL-11 is produced at highest frequency by myeloid cells among the PBMC cell subsets. Patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) have an increased frequency of IL-11+ monocytes, IL-11+ and IL-11R+ CD4+ lymphocytes and IL-11R+ neutrophils in comparison to matched healthy controls (HCs). IL-11+ and GM-CSF+ monocytes, CD4+ lymphocytes, and neutrophils accumulate in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The effect of IL-11 in-vitro stimulation, examined using single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq), revealed the highest number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in classical monocytes, including upregulated NFKB1, NLRP3 and IL1B. All CD4+ cell subsets had increased expression of S100A8/9 alarmin genes involved in NLRP3 inflammasome activation. In IL-11R+-sorted cells from the CSF, classical and intermediate monocytes significantly upregulated the expression of multiple NLRP3 inflammasome-related genes, including complement, IL18, and migratory genes (VEGFA/B) in comparison to blood-derived cells. Therapeutic targeting of this pathway with aIL-11 mAb in mice with RR experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) decreased clinical scores, CNS inflammatory infiltrates and demyelination. aIL-11 mAb treatment decreased the numbers of NFkBp65+, NLRP3+ and IL-1b+ monocytes in the CNS of mice with EAE. The results suggest that IL-11/IL-11R signaling in monocytes represents a therapeutic target in RRMS.
Project description:The NLRP3 inflammasome is a multi-protein complex that triggers the activation of the inflammatory protein caspase-1 and the maturation of the cytokine IL-1 in response to microbes and other danger signals in host cells. Here, we sought a deeper understanding of how the NLRP3 inflammasome is regulated. We found that inflammasome activation induced the Src family kinase Lyn to phosphorylate NLRP3 at Tyr918, and that this phosphorylation of NLRP3 correlated with a subsequent increase in its ubiquitination, which facilitated its proteasome-mediated degradation. NLRP3 tyrosine phosphorylation and ubiquitination was abrogated in Lyn-deficient macrophages, which produced increased amounts of IL-1. Furthermore, mice lacking Lyn were highly susceptible to LPS-induced septic shock in an NLRP3-dependent manner. Our data demonstrate that Lyn-mediated tyrosine phosphorylation of NLRP3 is a prerequisite for its ubiquitination, thus dampening NLRP3 inflammasome activity.
Project description:Cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS) is an autoinflammatory condition resulting from monoallelic NLRP3 variants that exacerbate IL-1 production. Although these are gain-of-function variants, the exact regulatory mechanism of the NLRP3-inflammasome in CAPS is not yet well understood. Despite being considered a hypersensitive inflammasome triggered by cell priming, patients with CAPS and animal models of the disease may present inflammatory flares even in the absence of identifiable external triggers. Herein, we found that CAPS-associated variants result in constitutively active NLRP3-inflammasome, which induce an increased basal cleavage of gasdermin D, IL-18 release and pyroptosis, with a concurrent basal pro-inflammatory gene expression signature, including the induction of nuclear receptors 4A. The constitutively active NLRP3-inflammasome was blocked by MCC950 and was dependent on NLRP3 expression level, further regulated by deubiquitination. Additionally, we determined that the activation of the NF-B pathway with lipopolysaccharide or other endogenous molecules (palmitate, S100A9, IL-6) further modulated the activation of the NLRP3-inflammasome in CAPS, thus expanding the repertoire of molecules secreted from patients’ macrophages involved in disease pathogenesis. NLRP3-inflammasomes with CAPS-associated variants mainly affected the immunometabolism of the myeloid compartment, leading to disruptions in lipids and amino acid pathways and impaired glycolysis, limiting IL-1β production. These findings demonstrate that NLRP3 variants causing CAPS form a constitutively active inflammasome that induces basal pyroptosis and IL-18 release without cell priming, favouring the host's innate defense against pathogens while also tempering the onset of IL-1β–dependent inflammatory episodes through immunometabolism modulation.
Project description:Inflammasome, activated by pathogen-derived and host-derived danger signals, constitutes a multimolecular signaling complex that serves as a platform for caspase-1 (CASP1) activation and interleukin-1beta (IL1B) maturation. The activation of NLRP3 inflammasome requires two-step signals. The first “priming” signal (Signal 1) enhances gene expression of inflammasome components. The second “activation” signal (Signal 2) promotes the assembly of inflammasome components. Deregulated activation of NLRP3 inflammasome contributes to the pathological processes of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and multiple sclerosis (MS). However, at present, the precise mechanism regulating NLRP3 inflammasome activation and deactivation remains largely unknown. By genome-wide gene expression profiling, we studied the molecular network of NLRP3 inflammasome activation-responsive genes in a human monocyte cell line THP-1 sequentially given two-step signals. We identified the set of 83 NLRP3 inflammasome activation-responsive genes. Among them, we found the NR4A nuclear receptor family NR4A1, NR4A2, and NR4A3, the EGR family EGR1, EGR2, and EGR3, the IkappaB family NFKBIZ, NFKBID, and NFKBIA as a key group of the genes that possibly constitute a negative feedback loop for shutting down inflammation following NLRP3 inflammasome activation. By molecular network analysis, we identified a complex network of NLRP3 inflammasome activation-responsive genes involved in cellular development and death, and immune and inflammatory responses, where transcription factors AP-1, NR4A, and EGR serve as a hub. Thus, NLRP3 inflammasome activation-responsive genes constitute the molecular network composed of a set of negative feedback regulators for prompt resolution of inflammation. To load the Signal 1 (S1), THP-1 cells were incubated for 3 hours in the culture medium with or without inclusion of 0.2 microgram/ml lipopolysaccharide (LPS). To load the Signal 2 (S2), they were incubated further for 2 hours in the culture medium with inclusion of 10 microM nigericin sodium salt dissolved in ethanol or the equal v/v% concentration of ethanol (vehicle), followed by processing for microarray analysis on Human Gene 1.0 ST Array (Affymetrix).
Project description:Caspase-1 signaling in myeloid suppressor cells can promote T-cell independent cancer progression, but the regulation of inflammasome signaling within the highly heterogeneous myeloid cells in the tumor milieu remains elusive. To resolve this complexity, scRNA-seq of human head & neck carcinoma identified distinct inflammasome complex genes within specific clusters of tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells. Among these myeloid cells, NLRP3 sensor and downstream effector IL-1β transcripts were enriched in multiple monocytic and macrophage subtypes in the TME. In vivo, we showed that NLRP3, and not AIM2, phenocopied the caspase-1/IL-1β dependent tumor progression. Paradoxically, we found that myeloid-intrinsic caspase-1 signaling within the TME increased myeloid survival without significant intratumoral trafficking as would be predicted from their canonical pyroptotic function. Mechanistically, this myeloid NLRP3/IL-1β signaling axis promotion of tumor growth was found to be gasdermin D independent. When we probed for the tumor intrinsic factors that regulated NLRP3/IL-1β signaling, we found that mononuclear phagocyte-mediated efferocytosis of dying tumor cells in the TME directly activated NLRP3 dependent inflammasome signaling to drive IL-1β secretion and to promote tumor growth. Dynamic RNA velocity analysis of the single cell transcriptomic dataset showed a strong directional flow from efferocytosis gene-sethigh macrophages to an inflammasome gene-sethigh macrophage population. Cumulatively, we provide a novel inflammasome signaling axis between tumor apoptosis and myeloid cells that characterizes chronic inflammation induced malignancy.
Project description:NLRP3 inflammasome assembles in response to stress or danger signals and leads to unconventional secretion of proinflammatory IL-1. FADD is an NLRP3 inflammasome component. Here we found that classical NLRP3 inflammasome activation in human monocytes/macrophages induced FADD secretion, which required potassium efflux, functional NLRP3 sensor, ASC adaptor and caspase-1 scaffold molecule. FADD is a leaderless protein unconventionally secreted through plasma membrane-derived microvesicles. Blood-derived monocytes from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients secreted more FADD following NLRP3 inflammasome activation than those from healthy donors, and we found increased levels of FADD in the sera (ESPOIR cohort) and synovial fluids from RA patients. Levels of synovial FADD correlated with the inflammatory status of the joint. These data reveal that FADD secretion occurs during inflammatory disease in vivo.
Project description:The cellular stress response plays a vital role in regulating homeostasis by modulating cell survival and death. Stress granules (referred to as SGs) are cytoplasmic compartments that allow cells to survive various stressors. Defects in SG assembly and disassembly have been found to play important roles in neurodegenerative diseases, antiviral responses and cancer1–5. Inflammasomes are multi-protein heteromeric complexes that sense intracellular pathogen- and damage-associated molecular patterns and assemble into cytosolic compartments called ASC specks to facilitate caspase-1 (CASP1) activation. This activation of inflammasomes induces secretion of the leaderless proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18 and also drives cell fate towards pyroptosis, a form of programmed inflammatory cell death that plays major role in health and disease6–12. Cellular stress sensing can trigger both SGs and inflammasomes; however, they drive contrasting cell fate decisions during stress conditions. Crosstalk between SGs and inflammasomes to decide cell fate has not been well studied. Here we show that the induction of SGs specifically inhibits NLRP3 inflammasome activation, ASC speck formation and pyroptosis. The SG protein DDX3X interacts with NLRP3 to drive inflammasome activation in the absence of SGs. Assembly of SGs leads to the sequestration of DDX3X to inhibit NLRP3 inflammasome function. SGs and the NLRP3 inflammasome compete for DDX3X molecules to coordinate the activation of innate responses and subsequent cell fate decisions under stress conditions. Induction of SGs or loss of DDX3X in the myeloid compartment leads to decreased production of inflammasome-dependent cytokines in vivo. Our findings suggest that macrophages utilize DDX3X availability to interpret stress signals and choose between pro-survival SGs and pyroptotic ASC specks. Together, our data show the role of DDX3X in driving NLRP3 inflammasome and SG assembly, informing a new rheostat-like mechanistic paradigm for regulating live or die cell fate decisions under stress conditions.
Project description:Activation of the NACHT, LRR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome complex is an essential innate immune signalling mechanism. To reveal how NLRP3 inflammasome assembly and activation are controlled, in particular by components of the ubiquitin system, proximity labelling, affinity purification and RNAi screening approaches were performed. Our study provides an intricate time-resolved molecular map of different phases of NLRP3 inflammasome activation. We discovered that ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase 1 (UCH-L1) interacts with the NACHT domain of NLRP3, and downregulation of UCH-L1 decreases pro-IL-1β levels. UCH-L1 chemical inhibition with small molecules interfered with NLRP3 puncta formation and ASC oligomerisation, leading to altered IL-1β cleavage and secretion, particularly in microglia cells, which exhibited elevated UCH-L1 expression as compared to monocytes/macrophages. Altogether, we profiled NLRP3 inflammasome activation dynamics and highlight UCH-L1 as an important modulator of NLRP3-mediated IL-1β production, suggesting that a pharmacological inhibitor of UCH-L1 may decrease inflammation-associated pathologies.
Project description:The NLRP3 inflammasome is dysregulated in autoinflammatory disorders caused by inherited mutations and contributes to the pathogenesis of several chronic inflammatory diseases. In this study, we discovered that disulfiram, a safe FDA-approved drug, specifically inhibits the NLRP3 inflammasome, but not the NLRC4 or AIM2 inflammasomes. Disulfiram suppresses caspase-1 activation, ASC speck formation, and pyroptosis induced by several stimuli that activate NLRP3. Mechanistically, NLRP3 is palmitoylated at cysteine 126, a modification required for its localization to the trans-Golgi network and inflammasome activation which was inhibited by disulfiram. Administration of disulfiram to animals inhibited the NLRP3, but not the NLRC4 inflammasome in vivo. Our study uncovers a mechanism by which disulfiram targets NLRP3 and provides a rationale for using a safe FDA-approved drug for the treatment of NLRP3-associated inflammatory diseases.
Project description:The immune system may respond to engineered nanomaterials (ENM) through inflammatory reactions. The NLRP3 inflammasome responds to a wide range of ENM, and its activation is associated with various inflammatory diseases. The objective of the study was to compare the effects of gold ENM of different shapes on NLRP3 inflammasome activation and related signalling pathways. Differentiated THP-1 cells (wildtype, ASC- or NLRP3-deficient), were exposed to PEGylated gold nanorods, nanostars, and nanospheres. Exposed cells were subjected to gene expression analysis. Nanorods, but not nanostars or nanospheres, showed NLRP3 inflammasome activation. ASC- or NLRP3-deficient cells did not show this effect. Gold nanorod-induced NLRP3 inflammasome activation was accompanied by downregulated sterol/cholesterol biosynthesis, oxidative phosphorylation, and purinergic receptor signalling. In conclusion, the shape and surface chemistry of gold nanoparticles determine NLRP3 inflammasome activation.