Metabolomic landscape of macrophage discloses an anabolic signature of dengue virus infection and antibody-dependent enhancement of viral infection.

Dengue virus (DENV) infection causes dengue fever, the most prevalent arthropod-transmitted viral disease worldwide. Viruses are acellular parasites and obligately rely on host cell machinery for reproduction. Previous studies have indicated metabolomic changes in endothelial cell models and sera of animal models and patients with dengue fever. To probe the immunometabolic mechanism of DENV infection, here, we report the metabolomic landscape of a human macrophage cell model of DENV infection and its antibody-dependent enhancement. DENV infection of THP-1-derived macrophages caused 202 metabolic variants, of which amino acids occupied 23.7%, fatty acids 21.78%, carbohydrates 10.4%, organic acids 13.37%, and carnitines 10.4%. These metabolomic changes indicated an overall anabolic signature, which was characterized by the global exhaustion of amino acids, increases of cellular fatty acids, carbohydrates and pentoses, but decreases of acylcarnitine. Significant activation of metabolic pathways of glycolysis, pentose phosphate, amino acid metabolism, and tricarboxylic acid cycle collectively support the overall anabolism to meet metabolic demands of DENV replication and immune activation by viral infection. Totally 88 of 202 metabolic variants were significantly changed by DENV infection, 36 of which met the statistical standard (P<0.05, VIP>1.5) of differentially expressed metabolites, which were the predominantly decreased variants of acylcarnitine and the increased variants of fatty acids and carbohydrates. Remarkably, 11 differentially expressed metabolites were significantly distinct between DENV only infection and antibody-dependent enhancement of viral infection. Our data suggested that the anabolic activation by DENV infection integrates the viral replication and anti-viral immune activation.