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Metabolic regulation of inflammatory processes: HIF-1alpha and IDO as anti-infectious effector molecules in professional phagocytes

Subject Area Immunology
Term from 2007 to 2014
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 21644054
 
Final Report Year 2016

Final Report Abstract

In this project we analyzed the influence of the oxygen regulated transcription factor hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)1α and the enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) on the function of dendritic cells (DC) in comparison to macrophages in the context of infection. We used DC- or macrophage-specific HIF1α-deficient mice to study the differentiation and function of these cell types under normoxic or hypoxic conditions in comparison to wild-type mice. We found that DC show a reduced survival but enhanced maturation under hypoxia in a HIF1α-independent manner. We also observed reduced proinflammatory cytokine production under hypoxia, but increased production of IL-22 and of the chemokines CCL17 and CCL22. Enhanced production of IL-22 under hypoxia was demonstrated to be HIF1α-dependent. In comparison, macrophages showed enhanced production of IL-12 and TNF under hypoxia in the absence of HIF1α but decreased production of IL-10. In both cell types altered chemokine receptor expression under hypoxia was HIF1α-dependent. Following either E. coli, S. aureus or listeria infection macrophages but not DC displayed a better survival under hypoxia and the presence of Hif1α slightly enhanced killing of E. coli in both cell types. As for the in vitro experiments, we did not see major differences in resistance of conditional HIF1α-deficient mice to infection with S. aureus or listeria in vivo. During the second part of the project we were able to successfully generate a new mouse mutant with inducible overexpression of IDO. In these mice the indo cDNA was inserted into the rosa26 locus following a loxP-flanked stop cassette. After breeding of this line to LysMcre mice we observed a strong increase in serum kynurenine levels up to 2 μg/ml, indicating a strongly enhanced IDO activity. Unexpectedly, r26IDOLysM Mice were found to be significantly more susceptible to LPS shock than wild-type controls.

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