FGF21 protects against hepatic lipotoxicity and macrophage activation to attenuate fibrogenesis in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis
- Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands
- AstraZeneca, Sweden
- AstraZeneca, United States
- First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
Abstract
Analogues of the hepatokine FGF21 are in clinical development for type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) treatment. Although their glucose-lowering and insulin-sensitizing effects have been largely unraveled, the mechanisms by which they alleviate liver injury have only been scarcely addressed. Here, we aimed to unveil the mechanisms underlying the protective effects of FGF21 on NASH using APOE*3-Leiden.CETP mice, a well-established model for human-like metabolic diseases. Liver-specific FGF21 overexpression was achieved in mice, followed by administration of a high-fat high-cholesterol diet for 23 weeks. FGF21 prevented hepatic lipotoxicity, accompanied by activation of thermogenic tissues and attenuation of adipose tissue inflammation, improvement of hyperglycemia and hypertriglyceridemia, and upregulation of hepatic programs involved in fatty acid oxidation and cholesterol removal. Furthermore, FGF21 inhibited hepatic inflammation, as evidenced by reduced Kupffer cell (KC) activation, diminished monocyte infiltration and lowered accumulation of monocyte-derived macrophages. Moreover, FGF21 decreased lipid- and scar-associated macrophages, which correlated with less hepatic fibrosis as demonstrated by reduced collagen accumulation. Collectively, hepatic FGF21 overexpression limits hepatic lipotoxicity, inflammation and fibrogenesis. Mechanistically, FGF21 blocks hepatic lipid influx and accumulation through combined endocrine and autocrine signaling, respectively, which prevents KC activation and lowers the presence of lipid- and scar-associated macrophages to inhibit fibrogenesis.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting file.
Article and author information
Author details
Anne-Christine Andreasson
Kristina Wallenius
Funding
Diabetes Fonds (2015.81.1808)
- Mariëtte R Boon
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research-NWO (VENI grant 91617027)
- Yanan Wang
Chinese Scholarship Council grant (CSC 201606010321)
- Enchen Zhou
The Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF18OC0032394)
- Milena Schönke
The Netherlands Cardiovascular Research Initiative: an initiative with support of the Dutch Heart Foundation (CVON-GENIUS-2)
- Patrick CN Rensen
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal experiments were carried out according to the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and were approved by the National Committee for Animal Experiments (Protocol No. AVD1160020173305) and by the Ethics Committee on Animal Care and Experimentation of the Leiden University Medical Center (Protocol No. PE.18.034.041).
Reviewing Editor
- Pramod Mistry, Yale School of Medicine, United States
Publication history
- Received: August 30, 2022
- Accepted: January 16, 2023
- Accepted Manuscript published: January 17, 2023 (version 1)
Copyright
© 2023, Liu et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 773
- Page views
-
- 192
- Downloads
-
- 1
- Citations
Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Crossref, PubMed Central, Scopus.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
FGF21 protects against hepatic lipotoxicity and macrophage activation to attenuate fibrogenesis in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis
eLife 12:e83075.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.83075
Further reading
-
- Cell Biology
- Immunology and Inflammation
The interplay among different cells in a tissue is essential for maintaining homeostasis. Although disease states have been traditionally attributed to individual cell types, increasing evidence and new therapeutic options have demonstrated the primary role of multicellular functions to understand health and disease, opening new avenues to understand pathogenesis and develop new treatment strategies. We recently described the cellular composition and dynamics of the human oral mucosa; however, the spatial arrangement of cells is needed to better understand a morphologically complex tissue. Here, we link single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and high-resolution multiplex fluorescence in situ hybridisation to characterise human oral mucosa in health and oral chronic inflammatory disease. We deconvolved expression for resolution enhancement of spatial transcriptomic data and defined highly specialised epithelial and stromal compartments describing location-specific immune programs. Furthermore, we spatially mapped a rare pathogenic fibroblast population localised in a highly immunogenic region, responsible for lymphocyte recruitment through CXCL8 and CXCL10 and with a possible role in pathological angiogenesis through ALOX5AP. Collectively, our study provides a comprehensive reference for the study of oral chronic disease pathogenesis.
-
- Immunology and Inflammation
Newborns are unable to reach the adult-level humoral immune response partly due to the potent immunoregulatory role of IL-10. Increased IL-10 production by neonatal B cells has been attributed to the larger population of IL-10-producting CD43+ B-1 cells in neonates. Here, we show that neonatal mouse CD43- non-B-1 cells also produce substantial amounts of IL-10 following B cell antigen receptor (BCR) activation. In neonatal mouse CD43- non-B-1 cells, BCR engagement activated STAT5 under the control of phosphorylated forms of signaling molecules Syk, Btk, PKC, FAK and Rac1. Neonatal STAT5 activation led to IL-6 production, which in turn was responsible for IL-10 production in an autocrine/paracrine fashion through the activation of STAT3. In addition to the increased IL-6 production in response to BCR stimulation, elevated expression of IL-6Rα expression in neonatal B cells rendered them highly susceptible to IL-6 mediated STAT3 phosphorylation and IL-10 production. Finally, IL-10 secreted from neonatal mouse CD43- non-B-1 cells was sufficient to inhibit TNF-α secretion by macrophages. Our results unveil a distinct mechanism of IL-6-dependent IL-10 production in BCR-stimulated neonatal CD19+CD43- B cells.
