Dataset Information

Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase Cannot Inhibit Chlamydia trachomatis Growth in HL-60 Human Neutrophil Granulocytes

ABSTRACT:

Aims

Neutrophil granulocytes are the major cells involved in Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis)-mediated inflammation and histopathology. A key protein in human intracellular antichlamydial defense is the tryptophan-degrading enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) which limits the growth of the tryptophan auxotroph Chlamydia. Despite its importance, the role of IDO in the intracellular defense against Chlamydia in neutrophils is not well characterized.

Methods

Global gene expression screen was used to evaluate the effect of C. trachomatis serovar D infection on the transcriptome of human neutrophil granulocytes. Tryptophan metabolite concentrations in the Chlamydia-infected and/or interferon-gamma (IFNG)-treated neutrophils were measured by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS).

Results

Our results indicate that the C. trachomatis infection had a major impact on neutrophil gene expression, inducing 1,295 genes and repressing 1,510 genes. A bioinformatics analysis revealed that important factors involved in the induction of neutrophil gene expression were the interferon-related transcription factors such as IRF1-5, IRF7-9, STAT2, ICSB, and ISGF3. One of the upregulated genes was ido1, a known infection- and interferon-induced host gene. The tryptophan-degrading activity of IDO1 was not induced significantly by Chlamydia infection alone, but the addition of IFNG greatly increased its activity. Despite the significant IDO activity in IFNG-treated cells, C. trachomatis growth was not affected by IFNG. This result was in contrast to what we observed in HeLa human cervical epithelial cells, where the IFNG-mediated inhibition of C. trachomatis growth was significant and the IFNG-induced IDO activity correlated with growth inhibition.

Conclusions

IDO activity was not able to inhibit chlamydial growth in human neutrophils. Whether the IDO activity was not high enough for inhibition or other chlamydial growth-promoting host mechanisms were induced in the infected and interferon-treated neutrophils needs to be further investigated.

SUBMITTER: Virok D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8606673 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Infection with Chlamydia pneumoniae, a human respiratory pathogen, has been associated with various chronic diseases such as asthma, coronary heart disease and importantly atherosclerosis. Possibly because the pathogen can exist in a persistent form. TNF-a has been reported to induce chlamydial persitence in epithelial cell lines, however the mechanism of TNF-a-induced persistence has not been reported. Moreover, C. pneumoniae persistently infect human dendritic cells (DCs) and activate DCs to produce cytokines including TNF-a. Induction of chlamydial persistence by other cytokines such as IFN-g is known to be due to indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) activity. The present study therefore, investigated whether C. pneumoniae infection can induce IDO activity in dendritic cells, and whether the restriction of chlamydial growth in the DCs by TNF-a is IDO-dependent. Our data indicate that infection of DCs with C. pneumoniae resulted in the induction of IDO expression. Reporting on our use of anti-TNF-a antibody adalimumab and varying concentrations of TNF-a, we further demonstrate that IDO induction following infection of DCs with C. pneumoniae is TNF-a-dependent. The anti-chlamydial activity induced by TNF-a and the expression of chlamydial 16S rRNA gene, euo, groEL1, ftsk and tal genes was correlated with the induction of IDO. Addition of excess amounts of tryptophan to the DC cultures resulted in abrogation of the TNF-a-mediated chlamydial growth restriction. These findings suggest that infection of DCs by C. pneumoniae induces production of functional IDO, which subsequently causes depletion of tryptophan. This may represent a potential mechanism for DCs to restrict bacterial growth in chlamydial infections. Experiment Overall Design: Human monocyte-derived DCs from five heathy donors were infected with C. pneumoniae at multiplicity of infection of 5 for 72 h. Mock-infected (uninfected) DCs were used as a control for the infection. Total RNA from 72 h chlamydiae-infected or mock-infected DCs was isolated with RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and DNA contamination was removed with RQ1 DNase (Promega). Total RNA from all donors was pooled and the samples were processed and analyzed at the array facility of Helmholtz center for infection biology, Braunschweig. The integrity of the RNA was verified on the Agilent Bioanalyzer system. We used the Affymetrix Gene Chip Human Genome U133 2.0 Plus. Data were processed using Affymetrix software and signal intensity measured was normalized by the Affymetrix MAS5 algorithm. Data were filtered to exclude genes at background levels (non-expressors, signal intensity at 100).