Abstract 178: Cholesterol Limits Macrophage Activation in Response to Intracerebral Hemorrhage-Relevant Signals

Abstract

Introduction: In response to intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), monocytes are recruited to the brain parenchyma, where they differentiate into macrophages and contribute to a pathological inflammatory response. However, by day 3 after ICH, brain macrophages have adopted a more reparative phenotype and are important for clearance of apoptotic cells and recovery. The signals that control this inflammatory to reparative differentiation are incompletely understood, but cholesterol has been found to limit macrophage activation in multiple systems. The brain has the highest cholesterol content of any organ and we hypothesized that cholesterol uptake by macrophages limits inflammation and promotes the development of reparative macrophages following ICH. Methods and Results: Murine bone marrow-derived macrophages were stimulated with a cocktail of thrombin, S100A8, and IL-1b in order to mimic the Danger-Associated Molecular Patterns present in the brain after ICH (ICH-DAMP), LPS, or vehicle for 14-18 hours. Cytokine production was quantified by cytometric bead array and activation markers by flow cytometry. ICH-DAMP was found to upregulate CCL2, IL-6 and TNF, recapitulating the inflammatory phenotype seen in the first days after ICH. However, when cells were stimulated in the presence of cholesterol, production of CCL2, IL-6, and TNF were limited. Dectin-1 has inhibitory properties in some sterile injury models. ICH-DAMP was found to limit expression of dectin-1, and cholesterol reversed this inhibition. Exposure to exogenous cholesterol also upregulated the cholesterol transporter ABCA1, allowing cells to efflux excess cholesterol. The drug Valspodar was therefore used to block cholesterol efflux and was found to further limit ICH-DAMP-mediated upregulation of CCL2. Conclusion: These results suggest that the cholesterol in the brain may limit macrophage activation in response to the stimuli present during intracerebral hemorrhage.