Immune metabolism: a bridge of dendritic cells function

Abstract

An increasing number of researches have shown that cell metabolism regulates cell function. Dendritic cells (DCs), a professional antigen presenting cells, connect innate and adaptive immune responses. The preference of DCs for sugar or lipid affects its phenotypes and functions. In many diseases such as atherosclerosis (AS), diabetes mellitus and tumor, altered glucose or lipid level in microenvironment makes DCs exert ineffective or opposite immune roles, which accelerates the development of these diseases. In this article, we review the metabolism pathways of glucose and cholesterol in DCs, and the effects of metabolic changes on the phenotype and function of DCs. In addition, we discuss the effects of changes in glucose and lipid levels on DCs in the context of different diseases for better understanding the relationship between DCs and diseases. The immune metabolism of DCs may be a potential intervention link to treat metabolic-related immune diseases.

Keywords:

• Cholesterol metabolism
• dendritic cell
• glucose metabolism
• immune response
• inflammation

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 81973823, 81573929, 81373232]; and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 81973823, 81573929, 81373232]; and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.