Archives

  • 2018-07
  • 2018-10
  • 2018-11
  • 2019-04
  • 2019-05
  • 2019-06
  • 2019-07
  • 2019-08
  • 2019-09
  • 2019-10
  • 2019-11
  • 2019-12
  • 2020-01
  • 2020-02
  • 2020-03
  • 2020-04
  • 2020-05
  • 2020-06
  • 2020-07
  • 2020-08
  • 2020-09
  • 2020-10
  • 2020-11
  • 2020-12
  • 2021-01
  • 2021-02
  • 2021-03
  • 2021-04
  • 2021-05
  • 2021-06
  • 2021-07
  • 2021-08
  • 2021-09
  • 2021-10
  • 2021-11
  • 2021-12
  • 2022-01
  • 2022-02
  • 2022-03
  • 2022-04
  • 2022-05
  • 2022-06
  • 2022-07
  • 2022-08
  • 2022-09
  • 2022-10
  • 2022-11
  • 2022-12
  • 2023-01
  • 2023-02
  • 2023-03
  • 2023-04
  • 2023-05
  • 2023-06
  • 2023-07
  • 2023-08
  • 2023-09
  • 2023-10
  • 2023-11
  • 2023-12
  • 2024-01
  • 2024-02
  • 2024-03
  • Caspase-3, human recombinant proteinase receptor Another pos

    2022-06-23

    Another possible effect of niacin is in altering immune cell trafficking; as it has been suggested that niacin therapy quells endothelial cell activation (Digby et al., 2010, Ganji et al., 2009) and thereby suppresses inflammatory cell recruitment (Wu et al. 2010). However, the impact of niacin on leukocyte trafficking to sites of Caspase-3, human recombinant proteinase receptor has not been studied in the context of diseases like atherosclerosis where such agonists confer at least partial protection against disease. Monocyte recruitment to atherosclerotic plaques is well established to drive atherosclerosis (Gautier et al., 2009, Glass and Witztum, 2001). Thus, we also assessed how therapeutic levels of niacin affected monocyte recruitment to or egress from atherosclerotic plaques of apoE−/− mice in order to better understand the mechanism of niacin action in the treatment of atherosclerosis.
    Materials and methods
    Results
    Discussion The marked cardiovascular benefits of high-dose niacin have been recognized for more than fifty years (Carlson 2005), but the phenomenon of skin flushing has limited the therapeutic use of niacin. Understanding the mechanisms of flushing, including downstream signaling pathways, may lead to drug discovery that targets the lipid modulating capabilities of niacin without triggering complications like skin toxicity (Walters et al. 2009). Remarkably, niacin therapy confers lasting protection against mortality from cardiovascular disease in men at high-risk (Canner et al. 1986). Furthermore, the same study, in which men taking niacin for 6 years were studied in a follow-up analysis 15 years post-treatment, suggested that niacin confers a protection against mortality from all causes (Canner et al. 1986), raising the possibility that niacin therapy confers beneficial effects beyond action in the cardiovascular system. The explanation for a lasting benefit still measurable 15 years after treatment may lie in the ability of niacin to raise HDL, which in turn may remodel atherosclerotic plaques to a long-term stable phenotype. However, it is also possible that other mechanisms contribute to these outcomes. Long-term protection from disease is a well-known feature of immunological memory. Our present study reveals that niacin treatment affects adaptive immunity, raising the possibility that part of its beneficial therapeutic effect results from immunomodulation. Specifically, in this study, we took advantage of the fact that mice do not raise HDL in response to niacin therapy to search for possible HDL-independent effects of niacin beyond induction of skin flushing. We first investigated whether niacin would have an effect on plaque composition or monocyte recruitment and retention in atherosclerotic plaques. We also investigated whether skin flushing associated with niacin therapy would have an impact on the mobilization of DCs from skin and their subsequent accumulation in lymph nodes, given that niacin-mediated flushing is the result of prostaglandin release in both humans (Morrow et al., 1992, Morrow and Parsons, 1989) and mice (Benyo et al., 2006, Hanson et al., 2010, Maciejewski-Lenoir et al., 2006). Prostaglandin D2 has been shown to inhibit DC migration to lymph nodes (Allan et al., 2006, Angeli et al., 2001). We found that up to 4 weeks of high-dose niacin therapy did not have an impact on gross morphological changes in plaque and did not affect the magnitude of monocytes recruited to plaque (Fig. 1). These findings are consistent with Declercq et al. (2005) who did not assess monocyte trafficking but found no changes in plaque size after 14 weeks of niacin feeding in an apoE−/− mouse model of atherosclerosis. However, our data contrast to a more recent study from Offermanns and colleagues (Lukasova et al. 2011). These investigators reported decreased lipid accumulation and reduced lesion area, downregulation of VCAM-1 and P-selectin mRNA expression in aortae, and decreased macrophage accumulation in plaques after niacin therapy. This study also found that monocyte recruitment to sites of acute inflammation, such as the peritoneum, was decreased by niacin treatment and that this recruitment, as well as that to atherosclerotic plaques, was dependent upon GPR109A. One difference between our findings and those of Lukasova et al. is that their study was carried out in LDLR−/− mice. However, this difference cannot explain discrepancies in trafficking to the inflamed peritoneum, as for this assay, we both studied wild-type C57/BL6 mice. Here, we carried out a typical peritoneal inflammation assessment, enumerating leukocytes 24h after thioglycollate administration, when recruited monocytes dominate the infiltrate, in mice fed niacin or control diet for 2 weeks. Lukasova et al. utilized an unusual protocol in which the impact of niacin was not assessed until 4 days after thioglycollate instillation, a timepoint when recruited monocytes have already accumulated and differentiated to macrophages. At this timepoint, they administered one dose of niacin (or saline as a control) into the peritoneum along with CCL-2 (MCP-1) to assess macrophage recruitment. Given that niacin treatment was not administered until after the peak accumulation of monocytes, induced by thiogylcollate injection, we suggest that many interpretations unrelated to monocyte recruitment could be applied, including niacin-induced local macrophage death or adhesion. In their assessment of recruitment to atherosclerotic plaques, 4-day thioglycollate-elicited peritoneal macrophages, rather than monocytes that normally infiltrate plaques, were adoptively transferred and their accumulation in plaques was assessed. The sensitivity of their assay was approximately 10-fold lower than our bead assay tracking endogenous monocytes (7 labeled macrophages per mm2 of plaque using their approach versus 70 labeled macrophages per mm2 of plaque using ours) (Potteaux et al. 2011).