Regulació de fabp4 depenent de nrf2 en macròfags

Identifier:  TDX:664

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX664

Authors:  Lázaro López, Iolanda

Abstract:
Macrophages play a crucial role in the development of atherosclerosis. It has been shown that oxidized LDL (oxLDL) induces adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein (FABP4) in human macrophages, which constitutes one of the major contributors to foam cell formation. oxLDL is a source of apolar aldehydes formed as end-products of polyunsaturated fatty acid oxidation in LDL. This thesis has been designed to study the hypothesis that apolar aldehydes participate in the induction of FABP4 expression in human macrophages. According to the prooxidant nature of these species, we have assessed whether FABP4 expression could be related to the cellular antioxidant system leadered by the transcription factor Nrf2. The experimental procedure was mainly performed by using human monocytic leukemia THP-1 cells which were differentiated to macrophages through a 72-hour phorbol ester treatment. 2,4-decadienal (DDE) and hexanal were the two apolar aldehydes studied. Reverse transcription and real time-PCR (RT-rtPCR) and Western blotting were used to assess FABP4 mRNA and protein expression, respectively. Both aldehydes produced a markedly increase in FABP4 expression at mRNA and protein levels. In silico analysis of human FABP4 promoter revealed the presence of a putative antioxidant response element (ARE) where Nrf2 could bind. This putative binding site had a high matrix similarity score with the consensus sequence. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay using an Nrf2-specific antibody confirmed the in vivo binding of Nrf2 to this ARE found in human FABP4 promoter. The assessment of the effect of the two aldehydes on Nrf2 activation evidenced a differential behaviour between DDE and hexanal. Whereas DDE increased nuclear phosphorylated Nrf2 levels, hexanal showed no effect. We observed that two of the major intracellular signal transduction pathways, PI-3k/Akt and ERK-MAPK, are implicated in DDE-induced Nrf2 activation. According to our results, we propose a novel role of Nrf2-ARE pathways as a triggering step on foam cell formation mediated by FABP4 induction in response to oxidation. These results open new therapeutic targets addressed to control arteriosclerosis development.