Paeonol promotes the phagocytic function of macrophage
In our previous study, we found that continuous stimulation with lipopolysaccharide(LPS) for 3 days reduced the phagocytic function of macrophages[10]. Therefore, in this study, we used continuous LPS stimulation of RAW264.7 cells for three days as the model (LPS group), while the experimental group (Pae group) was subjected to 3 consecutive days of LPS + paeonol stimulation. First, we co-cultured macrophages with zymosan fluorescent bioparticles and immediately recorded videos to observe the phagocytic process of macrophages (Fig. 1A). We found that macrophages in control group were highly active, quickly extending pseudopodia towards zymosan fluorescent bioparticles and completing phagocytosis in a short time (Video 1). In contrast, LPS-stimulated macrophages were relatively inactive, with only a few cells extending pseudopodia, and no migration towards or phagocytosis of bioparticles was observed (Video 2). Macrophages in the Pae group, similar to the control group, quickly responded to surrounding bioparticles and completed phagocytosis (Video 3).
Furthermore, we quantified the phagocytosis of bioparticles by macrophages after 2h of co-culture. We found that macrophages in the control group engulfed an average of 5.64 bioparticles, 4.42 in the Pae group, and only 1.21 in the LPS group. Additionally, 89.3% of control group cells engulfed bioparticles, 77% in the Pae group, and only 31% in the LPS group (Fig. 1B, C). To further investigate whether the differences in phagocytic function of macrophages in different groups were caused by specific cell surface receptors or other factors, we co-cultured macrophages with bacteria fluorescent bioparticles. We found that LPS and paeonol had similar effects on macrophage phagocytosis of bacteria as on zymosan fluorescent bioparticles (Fig. 1B, D). These results are consistent with our previous findings that continuous LPS stimulation reduces macrophage phagocytic function, while paeonol rescues this phenomenon, and this process does not involve specific recognition receptors on the surface of macrophages.
Paeonol promotes the lipid metabolism of macrophage
LPS stimulation affects macrophage lipid metabolism, such as inhibiting fatty acid oxidation[11] and suppressing the lipid metabolism[12], this maybe one reason why continuous LPS stimulation decrease the phagocytosis of macrophages. Therefore, to investigate the effect of paeonol on the lipid metabolism of microglial cells, we detected intermediate products of lipid metabolism (such as triglycerides, free fatty acids, and acylcarnitines) and some related proteins (such as LPL, ATGL, HSL, and FABP4) (Fig. 2A). We first examined the ATP levels in macrophages and found that LPS stimulation increased ATP levels, which might be due to altered glucose metabolism in macrophages, with reduced oxidative phosphorylation and increased glycolysis promoting ATP production[13]. Paeonol stimulation further increased ATP levels, suggesting that paeonol might promote lipid metabolism and ATP production (Fig. 2B).
We then examined the effect of paeonol on triglyceride, free fatty acid, and acylcarnitine levels in macrophages. We found that LPS stimulation significantly increased triglyceride levels compared to the control group, while free fatty acid and acylcarnitine levels significantly decreased. This suggests that LPS stimulation reduced the macrophage's ability to break down triglycerides, leading to triglyceride accumulation, subsequently reducing downstream fatty acid activation and ATP production in mitochondria. Paeonol reversed this phenomenon by reducing the accumulation of triglycerides in cells and increasing the content of free fatty acids and acylcarnitines (Fig. 2C-E). By detecting related proteins, we found that paeonol promoted triglyceride breakdown by increasing the expression of LPL, ATGL, and HSL (Fig. 2F-H). Although there was no significant difference in FABP4 expression among the three groups, the trend suggested that paeonol might promote FABP4 expression (Fig. 2I), possibly promoting lipid metabolism by increasing fatty acid transport.
In recent years, an increasing number of studies have shown that TREM2 is closely related to lipid metabolism[14, 15], and TREM2 affects macrophage phagocytosis and inflammatory responses by regulating lipid metabolism[16, 17]. Therefore, we observed the effect of paeonol on TREM2 protein levels and found that LPS reduced TREM2 expression, while paeonol promoted TREM2 expression (Fig. 2J). As a cell surface receptor, TREM2 is the starting point of lipid metabolism-related pathways, suggesting that paeonol's regulation of lipid metabolism might be based on its control of TREM2.
Paeonol promotes phagocytosis and lipid metabolism through TREM2
To elucidate the specific role of TREM2 in the process of paeonol promoting macrophage phagocytosis and lipid metabolism, we constructed a TREM2 knockout macrophage cell line. Using qPCR and Western Blot detection, we found that the cell line achieved a high TREM2 knockout efficiency (Fig. 3A, B). We then applied the same LPS and paeonol stimulation as before to the TREM2 knockout cell line. We found that, compared to the previous phagocytosis function (Fig. 1), knocking out TREM2 itself reduced macrophage phagocytosis, LPS stimulation further decreased phagocytosis in TREM2 knockout cells, and paeonol lost its ability to improve macrophage phagocytosis (Fig. 3C, D). By observing the phagocytosis process, we found that after knocking out TREM2, the phagocytic ability of macrophages decreased, and we did not observe cell migration and phagocytosis towards bioparticles(Video 4). After LPS(Video 5) and paeonol(Video 6) stimulation, the phagocytic activity of the cells was further reduced.
By further detecting lipid metabolism intermediates, we found that LPS also increased ATP levels and triglyceride accumulation in TREM2 knockout cells, and reduced free fatty acid and acylcarnitine levels, with paeonol not altering this phenomenon caused by LPS (Fig. 3E-H). The above information indicates that the effect of paeonol on macrophage phagocytosis and lipid metabolism is mainly achieved by regulating TREM2.
Paeonol promotes TREM2 expression by regulating P53 localization
HMGB1 is a widely distributed nuclear protein similar to histones, and it has a strong intracellular localization with P53[18, 19]. In our previous study, we found that paeonol could inhibit the acetylation of HMGB1 and prevent its nuclear export, thereby inducing a large accumulation of P53 in the cell nucleus. Studies have shown that the promoter region of TREM2 contains cis-acting elements for P53, which can promote the transcription of the TREM2 gene. Therefore, we hypothesize that there might be two different molecular mechanisms to promote TREM2 transcription: 1) The promoter region of TREM2 is wrapped around the nucleosome, and HMGB1 can expose the promoter region of TREM2 by folding DNA, increasing the binding rate of P53[20]; 2) The promoter region of TREM2 is normally exposed, and simply increasing the concentration of P53 in the cell nucleus can increase the probability of P53 binding to the TREM2 promoter (Fig. 4A). This study mainly focuses on the second hypothesis. We first observed the effects of LPS and paeonol on the intracellular localization of P53. We found that in normal macrophages, P53 is diffusely distributed throughout the cell. After LPS stimulation, P53 mainly concentrates in the cytoplasm, while after paeonol stimulation, P53 accumulates largely in the cell nucleus (Fig. 4B).
To investigate the effect of P53 on TREM2 expression, we constructed a P53 knockout macrophage cell line (Fig. 4C). By observing TREM2 expression, we found that LPS also reduced TREM2 expression, suggesting that LPS inhibits TREM2 expression through non-P53 pathways, and paeonol did not promote TREM2 expression, indicating that the effect of paeonol on TREM2 is mainly achieved through P53 (Fig. 4D-E). We then detected lipid metabolism intermediates in P53 knockout cells and found that the effect of paeonol on these intermediates was consistent with that in TREM2 knockout cells (Fig. 4F-I), indicating that the influence of paeonol on lipid metabolism is mainly achieved through the P53/TREM2 axis.
P53 promotes the expression of TREM2
To further investigate the specific binding sites between P53 and the TREM2 promoter, we constructed four P53 expression plasmids, including: 1) P53: expressing full-length P53 protein; 2) P53-1: expressing P53 protein consisting of amino acids 1-101; 3) P53-2: expressing P53 protein consisting of amino acids 102–292; 4) P53-3: expressing P53 protein consisting of amino acids 293–394 (Fig. 5A). By using dual luciferase reporter system, we co-transfected the above four plasmids with pGL4.10-TREM2 promoter plasmid into HEK293T cells to observe the activation effects of different truncated P53 proteins on the TREM2 promoter. We found that P53 and P53-2 proteins could promote the activation of the TREM2 promoter (Fig. 5B), indicating that the P53 binding site with the TREM2 promoter is located between amino acids 102–292. The specific site needs to be further investigated in subsequent experiments. Using the same experiment, we observed the effects of LPS and paeonol on the binding between P53 and the TREM2 promoter, and we found that neither of them directly interfered with the binding between P53 and the TREM2 promoter. This information indicates that the effect of paeonol on TREM2 expression mainly depends on its regulatory role in P53 localization.