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Hepatocyte mARC1 Promotes Fatty Liver Disease

ABSTRACT: Background and Aims Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has a prevalence of ~25% worldwide, with significant public health consequences yet has few effective treatments. Human genetics can help elucidate novel biology and identify targets of new therapeutics. Genetic variants in mitochondrial amidoxime reducing component 1 (MTARC1) have been associated with NAFLD and liver-related mortality, however, its pathophysiological role and the cell type(s) mediating these effects remain unclear. We aimed to investigate how MTARC1 exerts its effects on NAFLD by integrating human genetics with in vitro and in vivo studies of mARC1 knockdown. Methods Analyses including multi-trait colocalization and Mendelian randomization were used to assess the genetic associations of MTARC1. In addition, we established an in vitro long-term primary human hepatocyte model with metabolic readouts and used the Gubra GAN diet NASH mouse model treated with hepatocyte specific GalNAc-siRNA to understand the in vivo impacts of MTARC1. Results We show that genetic variants within the MTARC1 locus are associated with liver enzymes, liver fat, plasma lipids and body composition and these associations are due to the same causal variant (p.A165T, rs2642438 G>A), suggesting a shared mechanism. We demonstrated that increased MTARC1 mRNA had an adverse effect on these traits using Mendelian Randomization, implying therapeutic inhibition of mARC1 could be beneficial. In vitro mARC1 knockdown decreased lipid accumulation and increased triglyceride secretion and in vivo GalNAc-siRNA mediated knockdown of mARC1 lowered hepatic, but increased plasma triglycerides. We found alterations in pathways regulating lipid metabolism and decreased secretion of 3-hydroxybutyrate upon mARC1 knockdown in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions Collectively, our findings from human genetics, and in vitro and in vivo hepatocyte-specific mARC1 knockdown support the potential efficacy of hepatocyte-specific targeting of mARC1 for treatment of NAFLD.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE223652 | GEO | 2023/04/01

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has a prevalence of ~25% worldwide, with significant public health consequences, yet few effective treatments. Human genetics can help elucidate novel biology and identify targets of new therapeutics. Genetic variants in mitochondrial amidoxime reducing component 1 (MTARC1) have been associated with NAFLD and liver-related mortality, however, its pathophysiological role and the cell type(s) mediating these effects remain unclear. We aimed to investigate how MTARC1 exerts its effects on NAFLD by integrating human genetics with in vitro and in vivo studies of mARC1 knockdown. Methods: Analyses including multi-trait colocalization and mendelian randomization were used to assess the genetic associations of MTARC1. In addition, we established an in vitro long-term primary human hepatocyte model with metabolic readouts and used the Gubra GAN-diet NASH mouse model treated with hepatocyte specific GalNAc-siRNA to understand the in vivo impacts of MTARC1. Results: We show that genetic variants within the MTARC1 locus are associated with liver enzymes, liver fat, plasma lipids and body composition and these associations are due to the same causal variant (p.A165T, rs2642438 G>A), suggesting a shared mechanism. We demonstrated that increased MTARC1 mRNA had an adverse effect on these traits using Mendelian Randomization, implying therapeutic inhibition of mARC1 could be beneficial. In vitro mARC1 knockdown decreased lipid accumulation and increased triglyceride secretion and in vivo GalNAc-siRNA mediated knockdown of mARC1 lowered hepatic, but increased plasma triglycerides. We found alterations in pathways regulating lipid metabolism and decreased secretion of 3-hydroxybutyrate upon mARC1 knockdown in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions: Collectively, our findings from human genetics, and in vitro and in vivo hepatocyte-specific mARC1 knockdown support the potential efficacy of hepatocyte-specific targeting of mARC1 for treatment of NAFLD.

Project description:Objective：Phospholipase D1 (PLD1), a phosphatidylcholine-hydrolyzing enzyme, has been found to be involved in cellular lipid metabolism. However, how PLD1 involves in hepatocyte lipid metabolism and thus affects non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) has not been explicitly explored. Method: NAFLD is induced in hepatocyte-specific Pld1 knockout (Pld1(H)-KO) mice or control (Pld1-Flox) mice with a high fat diet (HFD) for 20 weeks. Plasma glucose and lipid levels, liver lipid and function parameters and inflammation- and fibrogenesis-related gene expression levels were studied. Changes in lipid composition of liver were detected by lipidomic analyses. Changes in gene expression profile were detected by mRNA sequencing. In vitro, alpha mouse liver 12 (AML12) cells were incubated with sodium palmitate (SP) to explore the mechanisms of PLD1 on development of NAFLD. The protein levels of PLD1 and CD36 were detected in the liver tissues of NAFLD patients. Finally, the therapeutic effect of NAFLD by inhibiting PLD with 5-Fluoro-2-indolyl deschlorohalopemide (FIPI) was examined. Results: PLD1 expression levels were increased in the liver tissues of NAFLD patients and the hepatocytes of HFD-induced mice. Compared with Pld1-Flox mice, Pld1(H)-KO mice exhibited lower plasma glucose and lipids levels, and decreased lipid accumulation, inflammation and fibrosis related gene expression levels in the liver tissues after HFD feeding. Inhibition of hepatocyte PLD1 significantly altered lipid composition, especially phosphatidic acids (PA) and lyso-PAs (LPA) levels in the liver tissues after NAFLD. Transcriptomic analysis showed that hepatocyte specific deficiency of PLD1 mainly decreased CD36 expression levels in the NAFLD liver tissues, which was confirmed at the protein and gene expression levels. In vitro, inhibition of PLD1 markedly decreased CD36 expression and lipid accumulation in SP treated AML12 cells. Furthermore, PA, the downstream product catalyzed by PLD1, increased the expression levels of CD36 and lipid accumulation in vitro, which was reversed by PPARγ antagonist. These suggested that PPARγ played an important role in transcriptional regulation of CD36 expression after PA stimulation. Finally, PLD inhibitor FIPI had significant therapeutic effect on HFD-induced NAFLD. Conclusion: Hepatocyte-specific deficiency of PLD1 ameliorates lipid accumulation and NAFLD development by inhibiting PPARγ/CD36 pathway conducted by PA.

Project description:Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), defined as fatty infiltration in >5% of hepatocytes (steatosis) in the absence of excessive alcohol consumption, is emerging as a leading cause of liver disease worldwide (1). Subjects with NAFLD have an increased risk of progressing into non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) as well as developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and liver cancer (2-4). Thus, understanding the pathobiology of NAFLD is of high medical relevance for the efficient prevention and treatment of a range of complex metabolic diseases. In NAFLD, excess lipids accumulate within intrahepatocellular lipid droplets (LDs), which are composed of a neutral lipid core of mainly triacylglycerol (TAG) and cholesterol esters surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer that harbors specific proteins. Once thought to be only inert energy storage depots, hepatic LDs are increasingly recognized as organelles that orchestrate liver lipid partitioning but also play a critical role in protein quality control and storage, cell signaling, and viral replication (5). Notably, LDs are shown to dynamically interact with a variety of cellular organelles including the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), mitochondria, peroxisomes, and endosomes (6). Liver LD surface-associated proteins regulate the functional properties of LDs, and dietary fat content as well as liver metabolic status have been shown to dynamically influence the composition of hepatic LD proteins (7, 8). Consequently, exploring how LD-associated proteins affect hepatic metabolism is important for understanding the molecular pathophysiology of NAFLD. In the search for novel targets that regulate ectopic lipid accumulation in the context of nutritional stress and obesity, we identified serine/threonine protein kinase (STK)25, a member of the Ste20 kinase superfamily (9), as a hepatic LD-associated protein, which critically controls the development and progression of NAFLD (10-15). We found that STK25 knockdown attenuates lipid deposition in human hepatocytes and mouse liver by repressing lipid synthesis and enhancing β-oxidation and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL)-TAG secretion, with the reciprocal phenotype seen when STK25 protein is overexpressed (10-15). Notably, administration of hepatocyte-targeting GalNAc-conjugated Stk25 antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) in obese mice effectively ameliorates diet-induced hepatic steatosis as well as NASH features (i.e., liver inflammation, hepatocellular ballooning, and fibrosis), providing in vivo nonclinical proof-of-principle for the metabolic benefit of pharmacological STK25 inhibitors (15). Furthermore, we observed that STK25 levels in human liver biopsies correlate with the severity of NASH, and several common non-linked single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the human STK25 gene are associated with altered liver fat content (12-14). Although these studies suggest a key role for STK25 in the control of liver LD dynamics, the mechanism-of-action of STK25 in regulation of hepatic lipid partitioning has remained elusive. To provide novel insights into biological function of STK25 in the liver under steatotic conditions, we here characterized the hepatic LD-associated phosphoproteome in Stk25 knockout mice and their wild-type littermates following high-fat diet feeding using non-biased approach by isobaric tagging for relative quantification. Of the 4,515 proteins and 982 phosphoproteins identified with a 1% false discovery rate, we report a total of 131 proteins and 69 phosphoproteins that were differentially represented in STK25-deficient livers. Most notably, a number of proteins involved in peroxisomal function, antioxidant defense, and ubiquitination-mediated proteolysis were coordinately regulated in the livers from high-fat-fed Stk25-/- mice compared with wild-type controls.

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Hepatocyte mARC1 Promotes Fatty Liver Disease

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