In Vivo Regulation of Signal Transduction Pathways by Vitamin D Stabilizes Homeostasis of Human Immune Cells and Counteracts Molecular Stress

Vitamin D(3) is a pre-hormone that regulates hundreds of target genes and dozens of physiological functions, including calcium homeostasis and the activity of the immune system, via its metabolite 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3), which is a high-affinity ligand for the transcription factor vitamin D receptor. In this study, we took advantage of data from the VitDHiD vitamin D(3) intervention trial (25 healthy individuals) indicating that 442 protein-coding genes were significantly (false discovery rate < 0.05) up- or downregulated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells one day after taking a vitamin D(3) bolus. Since more than half of the encoded proteins had “signaling” assigned as a primary biological function, we evaluated their involvement in signal transduction cascades included in the KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) database and found 88 of the vitamin D targets contributing to 16 different pathways. Eight of the pathways show an approximately even contribution of up- and downregulated genes, suggesting that the actions of vitamin D stabilize homeostasis of the physiological processes driven by the respective signaling cascades. Interestingly, vitamin D target genes involved in the signaling pathways of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and nuclear factor κB (NFκB) are primarily downregulated. This supports the observation that the physiological role of vitamin D in healthy individuals is to tone down certain processes rather than activate them. In conclusion, under in vivo conditions, vitamin D either alleviates the homeostasis of immune cells in healthy individuals or counteracts molecular responses to oxygen deprivation (HIF1), microbe infection (TNF), growth stimulation (MAPKs) and inflammation (NFκB).