Chronic stress primes innate immune responses in mice and humans
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
9-7-2021
Journal
Cell Reports
Volume
36
Issue
10
DOI
10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109595
Keywords
inflammation; metabolism; monocytes; priming; psychological stress; women
Abstract
Psychological stress (PS) is associated with systemic inflammation and accelerates inflammatory disease progression (e.g., atherosclerosis). The mechanisms underlying stress-mediated inflammation and future health risk are poorly understood. Monocytes are key in sustaining systemic inflammation, and recent studies demonstrate that they maintain the memory of inflammatory insults, leading to a heightened inflammatory response upon rechallenge. We show that PS induces remodeling of the chromatin landscape and transcriptomic reprogramming of monocytes, skewing them to a primed hyperinflammatory phenotype. Monocytes from stressed mice and humans exhibit a characteristic inflammatory transcriptomic signature and are hyperresponsive upon stimulation with Toll-like receptor ligands. RNA and ATAC sequencing reveal that monocytes from stressed mice and humans exhibit activation of metabolic pathways (mTOR and PI3K) and reduced chromatin accessibility at mitochondrial respiration-associated loci. Collectively, our findings suggest that PS primes the reprogramming of myeloid cells to a hyperresponsive inflammatory state, which may explain how PS confers inflammatory disease risk.
APA Citation
Barrett, T., Corr, E., van Solingen, C., Schlamp, F., Brown, E., Koelwyn, G., Lee, A., Shanley, L., Spruill, T., Bozal, F., de Jong, A., Newman, A., Drenkova, K., Silvestro, M., Ramkhelawon, B., Reynolds, H., Hochman, J., Nahrendorf, M., Swirski, F., Fisher, E., Berger, J., & Moore, K. (2021). Chronic stress primes innate immune responses in mice and humans. Cell Reports, 36 (10). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109595
