Mitochondrial DNA Leakage Caused by Hydrogen Peroxide Promotes Type I IFN Expression in Lung Cells.

, the bacterial pathogen responsible for invasive pneumococcal diseases, is capable of producing substantial amounts of hydrogen peroxide. However, the impact of -secreted hydrogen peroxide (HO) on the host immune processes is not completely understood. Here, we demonstrated that -secreted HO caused mitochondrial damage and severe histopathological damage in mouse lung tissue. Additionally, -secreted HO caused not only oxidative damage to mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mtDNA), but also a reduction in the mtDNA content in alveolar epithelia cells. This resulted in the release of mtDNA into the cytoplasm, which subsequently induced type I interferons (IFN-I) expression. We also determined that stimulator of interferon genes (STING) signaling was probably involved in HO-inducing IFN-I expression in response to mtDNA damaged by -secreted HO. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that HO produced by resulted in mtDNA leakage from damaged mitochondria and IFN-I production in alveolar epithelia cells, and STING may be required in this process, and this is a novel mitochondrial damage mechanism by which potentiates the IFN-I cascade in infection.