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Uptake of Plasmodium chabaudi hemozoin drives Kupffer cell death and fuels superinfections

Hirako, Isabella C
Antunes, Maísa Mota
Rezende, Rafael Machado
Hojo-Souza, Natália Satchiko
Figueiredo, Maria Marta
Dias, Thomaz
Nakaya, Helder
Menezes, Gustavo Batista
Gazzinelli, Ricardo T
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Abstract

Kupffer cells (KCs) are self-maintained tissue-resident macrophages that line liver sinusoids and play an important role on host defense. It has been demonstrated that upon infection or intense liver inflammation, KCs might be severely depleted and replaced by immature monocytic cells; however, the mechanisms of cell death and the alterations on liver immunity against infections deserves further investigation. We explored the impact of acute Plasmodium infection on KC biology and on the hepatic immune response against secondary infections. Similar to patients, infection with Plasmodium chabaudi induced acute liver damage as determined by serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) elevation. This was associated with accumulation of hemozoin, increased of proinflammatory response and impaired bacterial and viral clearance, which led to pathogen spread to other organs. In line with this, mice infected with Plasmodium had enhanced mortality during secondary infections, which was associated with increased production of mitochondrial superoxide, lipid peroxidation and increased free iron within KCs-hallmarks of cell death by ferroptosis. Therefore, we revealed that accumulation of iron with KCs, triggered by uptake of circulating hemozoin, is a novel mechanism of macrophage depletion and liver inflammation during malaria, providing novel insights on host susceptibility to secondary infections. Malaria can cause severe liver damage, along with depletion of liver macrophages, which can predispose individuals to secondary infections and enhance the chances of death.

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Hirako IC, Antunes MM, Rezende RM, Hojo-Souza NS, Figueiredo MM, Dias T, Nakaya H, Menezes GB, Gazzinelli RT. Uptake of Plasmodium chabaudi hemozoin drives Kupffer cell death and fuels superinfections. Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 17;12(1):19805. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-23858-7. PMID: 36396745; PMCID: PMC9671901.

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10.1038/s41598-022-23858-7
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36396745
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Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creativecommons. org/ licenses/ by/4. 0/. © The Author(s) 2022Attribution 4.0 International