Xu Weibin, Yu Lu, Zhou Wenzhong, Luo Min
Shanghai Institute of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University, School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2006 Dec 15;351(2):376-82. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2006.10.051. Epub 2006 Oct 17.
Excessive lipid accumulation in macrophages plays an important role in the development of atherosclerosis. Recently, several studies have implied that resistin, an adipocytokine which is mainly expressed in human peripheral blood monocytes, may take part in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. In this study, we investigated the effects of resistin on lipid accumulation as well as oxLDL on resistin expression in human macrophages. Treatment of macrophages with oxLDL significantly increased resistin mRNA expression, whereas native LDL had no such effect. Resistin pre-treated macrophages contained more and larger lipid droplets stained by Nile red. Resistin increased the expression of CD36 at both mRNA and protein levels, without affecting those of class A macrophage scavenger receptor (SR-A). These results suggest that resistin promotes lipid accumulation in human macrophages through its upregulating CD36 cell surface expression. Also, it is suggested that resistin may act as a modulator for macrophage-to-foam cell transformation.
巨噬细胞中过量的脂质积累在动脉粥样硬化的发展中起重要作用。最近，几项研究表明，抵抗素，一种主要在人外周血单核细胞中表达的脂肪细胞因子，可能参与动脉粥样硬化的发病机制。在本研究中，我们研究了抵抗素对脂质积累的影响以及氧化型低密度脂蛋白（oxLDL）对人巨噬细胞中抵抗素表达的影响。用oxLDL处理巨噬细胞显著增加了抵抗素mRNA的表达，而天然低密度脂蛋白（LDL）则没有这种作用。用抵抗素预处理的巨噬细胞含有更多更大的经尼罗红染色的脂滴。抵抗素在mRNA和蛋白质水平上均增加了CD36的表达，而不影响A类巨噬细胞清道夫受体（SR-A）的表达。这些结果表明，抵抗素通过上调CD36细胞表面表达促进人巨噬细胞中的脂质积累。此外，提示抵抗素可能作为巨噬细胞向泡沫细胞转化的调节剂。
