Investigating the lipid-immune signaling axis in modulating the inflammatory response to Salmonella entericaserovar Typhimurium infections

Abstract Salmonella entericaserovar Typhimurium (STM) is an intracellular pathogen that causes gastroenteritis and can disseminate systemically through survival in phagocytes. Eicosanoids-derived bioactive lipids play critical roles in both the induction and resolution of inflammation during bacterial infections or other insults. A subset of these lipids are endogenous ligands for nuclear receptors/transcription factors Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR), which play major roles in fatty acid metabolism and modulation of immune functions (including macrophage MΦ polarization). To elucidate the role of PPARα, we infected streptomycin-pretreated C57BL/6 (wildtype) and Ppara−/−mice with STM (colitis model). We determined that Ppara−/−mice have increased eicosanoid production, decreased inflammatory gene expression and histopathology scores in cecal tissue, and reduced systemic dissemination of bacteria, compared to C57BL/6 mice. These data suggest that the activation of PPARα results in a deleterious immune response favoring STM infection. When polarizing MΦ to various subsets, STM infection enhanced M2b and M2c polarizations (anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory) in a PPARα-dependent manner. Using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS), we also determined that STM infection alters the fatty acid profiles in polarized MΦ. Specifically, C57BL/6 M2b-polarized STM-infected MΦ have decreased ceramide levels compared to uninfected control, which would inhibit programmed cell death and enhance bacterial intracellular survival. These findings provide important insights into how the reprogramming of immune metabolism affects host-pathogen interactions during bacterial infections. This work was supported by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease R01 AI168550 (VT)