Comparative study of the effects of ziram and disulfiram on human monocyte-derived macrophage functions and polarization: involvement of zinc

Disulfiram Inhibits Opsonin-Independent Phagocytosis and Migration of Human Long-Lived In Vitro Cultured Phagocytes from Multiple Inflammatory Diseases

Disulfiram (DSF), an anti-alcoholism medicine, exerts treatment effects in patients suffering from persistent Borreliosis and also exhibits anti-cancer effects through its copper chelating derivatives and induction of oxidative stress in mitochondria. Since chronic/persistent borreliosis is characterized by increased amounts of pro-inflammatory macrophages, this study investigated opsonin-independent phagocytosis, migration, and surface marker expression of in vivo activated and in vitro cultured human monocyte-derived phagocytes (macrophages and dendritic cells) with and without DSF treatment. Phagocytosis of non-opsonized Dynabeads® M-450 and migration of macrophages and dendritic cells were monitored using live cell analyzer Juli™ Br for 24 h, imaging every 3.5 min. To simultaneously monitor phagocyte function, results were analyzed by a newly developed software based on the differential phase contrast images of cells before and after ingestion of Dynabeads. DSF decreased the phagocytic capacities exhibited by in vitro enriched and long-lived phagocytes. Although no chemotactic gradient was applied to the test system, vigorous spontaneous migration was observed. We therefore set up an algorithm to monitor and quantify both phagocytosis and migration simultaneously. DSF not only reduced phagocytosis in a majority of these long-lived phagocytes but also impaired their migration. Despite these selective effects by DSF, we found that DSF reduced the expression densities of surface antigens CD45 and CD14 in all of our long-lived phagocytes. In cells with a high metabolic activity and high mitochondrial contents, DSF led to cell death corresponding to mitochondrial oxidative stress, whereas metabolically inactive phagocytes survived our DSF treatment protocol. In conclusion, DSF affects the viability of metabolically active phagocytes by inducing mitochondrial stress and secondly attenuates phagocytosis and migration in some long-lived phagocytes.

Designs for the simultaneous inference of concentration-response curves

BACKGROUND

An important problem in toxicology in the context of gene expression data is the simultaneous inference of a large number of concentration-response relationships. The quality of the inference substantially depends on the choice of design of the experiments, in particular, on the set of different concentrations, at which observations are taken for the different genes under consideration. As this set has to be the same for all genes, the efficient planning of such experiments is very challenging. We address this problem by determining efficient designs for the simultaneous inference of a large number of concentration-response models. For that purpose, we both construct a D-optimality criterion for simultaneous inference and a K-means procedure which clusters the support points of the locally D-optimal designs of the individual models.

RESULTS

We show that a planning of experiments that addresses the simultaneous inference of a large number of concentration-response relationships yields a substantially more accurate statistical analysis. In particular, we compare the performance of the constructed designs to the ones of other commonly used designs in terms of D-efficiencies and in terms of the quality of the resulting model fits using a real data example dealing with valproic acid. For the quality comparison we perform an extensive simulation study.

CONCLUSIONS

The design maximizing the D-optimality criterion for simultaneous inference improves the inference of the different concentration-response relationships substantially. The design based on the K-means procedure also performs well, whereas a log-equidistant design, which was also included in the analysis, performs poorly in terms of the quality of the simultaneous inference. Based on our findings, the D-optimal design for simultaneous inference should be used for upcoming analyses dealing with high-dimensional gene expression data.

Differential immunomodulatory effects of six pesticides of different chemical classes on human monocyte-derived macrophage functions

Exposure to pesticides through eyes, skin, ingestion and inhalation may affects human health by interfering with immune cells, such as macrophages. We evaluated, in vitro, the effect of six pesticides widely used in apple arboriculture on the functions of human monocyte-derived macrophages (hMDMs). hMDMs were cultured for 4 or 24 h with or without pesticides (0.01, 0.1, 1, 10 μmol.L^-1). We showed that chlorpyrifos, thiacloprid, thiophanate, boscalid, and captan had little toxic effect at the tested concentrations, while dithianon had low-cytotoxicity at 10 μmol.L^-1. While boscalid showed no effect on hMDMs function, thiophanate (0.01 μmol.L^-1) stimulated with TPA and thiacloprid (1, 10 μmol.L^-1) stimulated with zymosan activated ROS production. Chlorpyrifos, dithianon, and captan inhibited ROS production and TNF-α, IL-1β pro-inflammatory cytokines. We established that dithianon (0.01-1 μmol.L^-1) and captan (0.1, 1 μmol.L^-1) induced mRNA expression of NQO1 and HMOX1 antioxidant enzymes. Dithianon also induced the mRNA expression of catalase, superoxide dismutase-2 at 10 μmol.L^-1. Together, these results show that exposure to chlorpyrifos, dithianon, and captan induce immunomodulatory effects that may influence the disease fighting properties of monocytes/macrophages while pesticides such as thiacloprid, thiophanate and boscalid have little influence.

Systematic Review of Multi-Omics Approaches to Investigate Toxicological Effects in Macrophages

Insights into the modes of action (MoAs) of xenobiotics are of utmost importance for the definition of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs), which are essential for a mechanism-based risk assessment. A well-established strategy to reveal MoAs of xenobiotics is the use of omics. However, often an even more comprehensive approach is needed, which can be achieved using multi-omics. Since the immune system plays a central role in the defense against foreign substances and pathogens, with the innate immune system building a first barrier, we systematically reviewed multi-omics studies investigating the effects of xenobiotics on macrophages. Surprisingly, only nine publications were identified, combining proteomics with transcriptomics or metabolomics. We summarized pathways and single proteins, transcripts, or metabolites, which were described to be affected upon treatment with xenobiotics in the reviewed studies, thus revealing a broad range of effects. In summary, we show that macrophages are a relevant model system to investigate the toxicological effects induced by xenobiotics. Furthermore, the multi-omics approaches led to a more comprehensive overview compared to only one omics layer with slight advantages for combinations that complement each other directly, e.g., proteome and metabolome.