Epigenetic Regulation of Inflammatory Responses in Macrophages

Innate immunity is regulated at both the transcriptional and epigenetic level. However, the complex epigenetic regulation of inflammatory responses in innate immunity remains to be fully characterized. The objective was to characterize the function of a NAD+-dependent lysine deacetylase SIRT7 in regulating polarization and inflammatory responses in bone marrow derived macrophages. In primary bone marrow derived macrophages, LPS induced significant pro-inflammatory responses. LysM-Cre induced SIRT7 knockout (KO) male macrophages exhibited enhanced inflammatory responses compared to WT macrophages. Interestingly, we did not observe a similar trend in female cells. In fact, loss of SIRT7 in female macrophages induced weaker proinflammatory responses when challenged with LPS. As an epigenetic co-factor, SIRT7 is known to interact with multiple inflammation related nuclear hormone receptors, such as glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and vitamin D receptor (VDR). Therefore, we examined whether the glucocorticoid or vitamin D induced anti-inflammatory responses are affected in SIRT7 KO macrophages. Preliminary results suggest that both glucocorticoid and vitamin D are still able to inhibit LPS-induced inflammatory responses in SIRT7 KO cells. Future studies using RNA-seq and epigenetic assays will be needed to determine the sex-specific function of SIRT7 in macrophage activation.