Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BHNRC) » Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center » Diet, Genomics and Immunology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #280956

Title: Characterization of lipopolysaccharide-stimulated cytokine expression in macrophages and monocytes

Author
item HUANG, HAIQIU - University Of Maryland
item FLETCHER, ARNETTA - University Of Maryland
item NIU, YUGE - Shanghai Jiaotong University
item Wang, Thomas - Tom
item YU, LIANGLI - University Of Maryland

Submitted to: Inflammation Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/28/2012
Publication Date: 12/30/2012
Citation: Huang, H., Fletcher, A., Niu, Y., Wang, T.T., Yu, L. 2012. Characterization of lipopolysaccharide-stimulated cytokine expression in macrophages and monocytes. Inflammation Research. 61(12):1329-1338.

Interpretive Summary: Inflammation plays a pivotal role in several chronic human conditions and diseases including atherosclerosis, ischemic heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. In vitro cell culture models such as exposure of mouse macrophage J774A.1 and human monocyte THP-1 cells to bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) are widely used in inflammation research. However, information regarding the time- and dose-dependency of inflammatory responses toward LPS in these cell lines remained scattered in the literatures. To address this deficiency, an ARS scientist in collaboration with University of Maryland scientist characterized the time- and dose-dependence responses of J774A.1 and THP-1 cells to LPS. Expression of inflammation related proteins at both transcriptional and translational levels was used to assess the responses. We observed that the cells release protein messenger molecules called cytokines that respond in distinct patterns upon LPS stimulation. In addition, regulation of the response to LPS appeared to be different between J774A.1 and THP-1, which correlated with differential regulation of a receptor for LPS. In summary, this study showed the need to control carefully experimental conditions and not generalized cell line data using different sources of cells. The information serves as an important basis for future investigation on diet-derived agents that may regulate inflammation. This work will benefit basic, as well as translational research science.

Technical Abstract: Inflammation plays a pivotal role in several chronic human conditions and diseases including atherosclerosis, ischemic heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. In vitro cell culture models such as exposure of mouse macrophage J774A.1 and human monocyte THP-1 cells to bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) are widely used in inflammation research. However, information regarding the time- and dose-dependency of inflammatory responses toward LPS in these cell lines remained scattered in the literatures. To address this deficiency, we characterized the time- and dose-dependence responses of J774A.1 and THP-1 cells to LPS. Expression of inflammation related proteins at both a transcriptional and translational level was used to assess the responses. We observed cytokines respond in distinct patterns upon LPS stimulation in a time- and dose-dependent manner. In addition, regulation of the response to LPS appeared to be different between J774A.1 and THP-1 cells which correlated with differential regulation of TLR4 at mRNA level. In summary, this study indicated that temporal and dose-dependent responses to LPS need to be controlled and that extrapolation of data on mechanisms may differ between cell lines of different origin.