Lymphocytes are less sensitive to autophagy than monocytes during fasting and exercise conditions

The concomitant investigation of apoptosis (a regulated cell death) and autophagy (a conserved cell survival mechanism) in immune cells is rare. More detailed knowledge of these two types of self-consumption in circulating lymphocytes and monocytes would be important, since conditions such as fasting and acute exercise could promote health by a coordinated/linked modulation of autophagy and apoptosis in these mononuclear cells. In this study we performed flow cytometry to quantify numbers of apoptotic and autophagic mononuclear cells, lymphocytes and monocytes in fasting, standardized fed, and exercise conditions, using Annexin V, LC3B, and p62, respectively. We show that within total mononuclear cells lymphocytes are less apoptotic and autophagic than monocytes during fasting (p < 0.001, p < 0.05, respectively) and after acute exercise (p < 0.01, p < 0.05, respectively). Fasting increased circulating autophagic monocyte concentrations, but not lymphocytes compared to the fed control condition. Acute exercise elevated circulating autophagic lymphocyte concentrations, but not monocytes. Interestingly, Western blotting analysis of the fasting samples showed that higher LC3BII/I ratios were correlated with lower numbers of autophagic mononuclear cells (r = − 0.74, p = 0.02, n = 8), which could be attributed to the monocyte subgroup, but not lymphocytes. These results extend the current knowledge of the two types of self-consumption in circulating immune cells and underline their possible importance in pro-inflammatory monocytes during fasting and exercise as health promoting interventions.