Unraveling Secretory Mechanisms that Control Pentraxin 3 Secretion in Adipocytes During Inflammation

As a soluble pattern recognition receptor, Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) plays an important role in innate immunity and obesity-associated metabolic inflammation. PTX3 is abundantly expressed and secreted in adipocytes in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation. Appropriate regulation of PTX3 secretion is critical for maintaining inflammatory homeostasis. This study aims to unravel the mechanisms that control PTX3 secretion in adipocytes during LPS-induced inflammation. Upon 6h treatment of LPS, PTX3 expression and secretion were significantly induced in 3T3-L1 and stromal-vascular (SV) differentiated adipocytes, but to a lesser extent in SV cells or 3T3-L1 fibroblasts. However, LPSdoes not significantly stimulate PTX3 expression and secretion in macrophages. Using chemical inhibitors of conventional and unconventional protein secretion, we explored the mechanisms for controlling LPS-stimulated PTX3 secretion. 3T3-L1 adipocytes were treated with LPS for 6h in the presence or absence of various inhibitors blocking protein secretion from the Golgi complex (Monensin and Brefeldin A), mitochondrial oxidation (carbonyl cyanide 3-chlorophenylhydrazone [CCCP]), autophagy-lysosome (chloroquine and 3-methyladenine) and inflammasome (Bay 11–7082 and wedelolactone) activation, or exosome synthesis and trafficking (GW4869, manumycin A, calpeptin, and Y-27632). There were no significant effects of all inhibitors except for Monensin, Brefeldin A, and CCCP on intracellular and secreted levels of PTX3 in adipocytes. We found that Monensin and Brefeldin A significantly blocked LPS-stimulated PTX3 secretion, resulting in cellular PTX3 accumulation in adipocytes. Disrupting mitochondrial membrane potential by CCCP caused the reduction in PTX3 secretion from adipocytes. Additionally, we detected PTX3 in exosomes isolated from LPS-treated adipocytes. Inhibiting exosome synthesis by Manumycin A attenuated LPS-stimulated PTX3 secretion in both adipocyte culture media and isolated exosomes but not in the non-exosomal fraction of media, suggesting the involvement of the exosomal pathway in PTX3 secretion. However, the levels of exosomal PTX3 were significantly lower than that of the non-exosomal PTX3, and only 4.3% of secreted PTX3 was detected in the exosomal fraction of cultural media. Inhibiting the Golgi complex pathway blocked both the exosomal and non-exosomal secretion of PTX3 in adipocytes. After further fractionation of isolated crude exosomes by the iodixanol density gradient centrifugation, we showed that the majority of PTX3 was found in the non-extracellular vesicular (EV) fractions; only a small portion of secreted PTX3 overlapped with the exosomal marker CD63 in the small EV fractions. We conclude that PTX3 is secreted mainly through the conventional protein secretion pathway and minimally through the exosomal or EV pathway in response to LPS stimulation.