In this study, we performed a comprehensive metabolomic analysis on culture supernatants of ADSCs isolated from humans; although some studies have performed metabolomic analysis on ADSCs’ secretion products, they were performed on mouse or rat ADSCs [61, 62]; to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to reveal the detailed metabolite profiles of human ADSCs.
Despite the existence of previous reports on the LA secreted from ADSCs, most are related to the energy metabolism of ADSCs themselves; in other words, LA is considered as a “waste” produced by altered metabolic systems, and the functional role of secreted LA was not clear, thus far [62–64]. In this study, LA secreted by ADSCs suppresses the pro-inflammatory activity of M1-like macrophages. Since inflammatory responses are mainly elicited by M1-like macrophages, strategies to suppress the pro-inflammatory cytokine production would be effective against inflammatory diseases; in this regard, enhancing LA secretion from ADSCs may be clinically beneficial. LA has been shown to be secreted in large amounts in previous metabolomic analysis of mouse ADSCs [62], suggesting that this might be a common phenomenon across species. Previous studies revealed that LA production from ADSCs increased under hypoxia [63–65]. Interestingly, oxygen levels in the normal knee joint are maintained in hypoxic conditions but increase with OA progression [66]. Treatment with ADSCs has weak effects in patients with severe OA, possibly by suppressing LA secretion from ADSCs due to oxygen concentration changes within the knee joint [67]. Further studies are needed to determine whether LA contributes to the therapeutic effects against various inflammatory diseases (e.g., arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and sepsis) by in vivo experiments. Referring to OA, where ADSCs are frequently used during therapy, the conditioned ADSC medium alleviated OA symptoms, and it would be worthwhile to investigate whether LA also contributes to the therapeutic effect of ADSCs in vivo [21, 68, 69]. However, LA may yield positive and negative effects on OA. For example, LA is expected to exert its therapeutic effects by suppressing the expression of ADAMTS5, a typical extracellular matrix-degrading protease, by increasing the expression of COL2A1, a significant component of the articular cartilage, or by suppressing the migration and IL-6 production of synovial macrophages [70, 71]. Conversely, the acidic pH caused by lactic acid may exacerbate symptoms by inhibiting chondrocyte proliferation and matrix synthesis and by promoting IL-6 production from synovial fibroblasts [70, 71]. In this study, the therapeutic effect of LA on OA was investigated using a collagenase-induced mice model, with LA uptake blocked using 7ACC2. Histological analysis showed that 7ACC2 treatment partially impaired the reduction of cartilage loss by CM (Fig. S7). Although M1-like macrophages are reportedly accumulated in collagenase-induced OA, 7ACC2 could not completely cancel the therapeutic effect of CM [72]. This might be because (1) 7ACC2 administered to the knee joint affects not only macrophages but also other cell types such as chondrocytes and synoviocytes and (2) ADSCs secrete various cytokines and EVs in addition to LA, which may also contribute to their therapeutic effect [22, 23]. Therefore, alternative methods (e.g., use of macrophage-specific MCT1-deficient mice and administration of ADSCs with suppressed LA production) to accurately validate the anti-inflammatory effects of LA in vivo need to be explored.
There are several reports on the effects of LA on monocytes and/or macrophages, with tumor cell-derived LA inducing M2 polarization of tumor-associated macrophages and bone marrow-derived MSC-derived LA affecting the differentiation of monocytes to dendritic cells [73, 74]. Further, activation of NF-κB signaling is important for macrophage activation; however, whether LA affects the NF-κB signaling is controversial. For example, Samuvel et al. reported that LA activates NF-κB pathway by boosting TLR4 signaling [75]. On the contrary, Yang et al. and other research groups indicated that LA suppresses pro-inflammatory phenotypes [76–78]. Moreover, Hée et al. demonstrated that LA does not activate NF-κB signaling under certain conditions [79]. Although the effect of LA on NF-κB pathway is not entirely clear, some studies indicate that LA activates NF-κB signaling in some cell types but not in oxidative cells [79–81]. As previous reports showed that THP-1 cells depend on oxidative phosphorylation for energy production, we do not see any inconsistency between these studies [82, 83] and the present report. It should be noted that a major M2-like macrophage marker ARG1 expression was not observed in this study, possibly because the phenotype of THP-1 cells is biased toward the M1 type, and the expression of IL10 and ARG1, which are characteristic of M2-like macrophages, is relatively low compared to human monocytic U937 cell-derived macrophages [84]. In addition, ARG1 expression varies among species and cell origins, and it is debatable whether ARG1 can be a marker for human M2-like macrophages [85].
Recently, Shi et al. have reported that LA exerts an anti-inflammatory effect through transcriptional alterations via histone acetylation rather than suppressing NF-κB signaling or inducing polarization toward M2-like macrophages [34]. In our experiments, LA increased or decreased the expression of different M1- and M2-like macrophage markers, making it unlikely to induced polarization toward M2-like macrophages. Mechanistically, LA incorporated into macrophages via MCTs is metabolized to citrate as fuel for the TCA cycle, followed by acetylation of histone H3K27, and this histone modification triggers transcriptional program shift toward immunosuppression. They showed that treatment with LPS and LA increased H3K27ac expression in murine macrophages, and trichostatin A, an HDAC inhibitor also promoted H3K27 acetylation. Consistent with their reports, we demonstrated that LA increased H3K27ac expression in human-derived M1-like macrophages (Fig. 5). Furthermore, previous studies have shown that epigenetic changes, especially histone modifications, play an important role in the long-term memory of innate immunity [86, 87]. As discussed by Shi et al., LA-treated macrophages exhibit long-lasting immunosuppressive phenotype. Results of randomized controlled trials have shown that ADSC treatment for OA relieved symptoms even at 12 months postoperatively [88]. These results suggest that ADSCs may, of course, differentiate into chondrocytes and repair tissues. Still, LA secreted from administered ADSCs may cause epigenetic reprogramming of macrophages and induce a long-term immunosuppressive state, resulting in prolonged alleviation of symptoms. Although analyses of detailed molecular mechanisms and experiments using CM have not been performed, the results suggest that high LA concentrations secreted from ADSCs can modify the transcriptional program of M1-like macrophages.
In this study, the recently developed MCT1 inhibitor 7ACC2 was used to block LA uptake. The effect of 7ACC2 varies by cell type, with 7ACC2 effectively inhibiting LA uptake in cells expressing both MCT1 and MCT4. Indeed, transcriptome analysis showed that THP-1 cells highly express both MCT1 and MCT4. However, since LA uptake could not be completely inhibited by 7ACC2, other approaches, such as alternative inhibitors or genetic inhibition, are needed to more accurately examine the impact on macrophages of the LA secreted by ADSCs.
Overall, we demonstrated that ADSCs exert anti-inflammatory effects via LA secretion. As shown in the metabolome analysis, ADSCs secrete other metabolites aside from LA. Medina et al. reported that the combination of multiple metabolites released from apoptotic cells suppress the inflammatory response of myeloid cells [36]. In our study, the percentage of apoptotic macrophages did not change at 24 h of LA exposure. Still, metabolites secreted from apoptotic macrophages present earlier and/or certain metabolite combinations may enhance the observed anti-inflammatory effects. Also, we investigated the effect of apoptotic ADSCs. In the present study, apoptosis was induced in ADSCs using nutlin-3, which was used in the study by Niemann et al., analyzing metabolites secreted by apoptotic brown adipocytes [35]. Nutlin-3 is a small molecule compound that activates the p53 pathway by inhibiting the interaction between MDM2 and p53, thereby inducing apoptosis [51, 52]. Annexin V assay revealed that nutlin-3 successfully induced apoptosis in ADSCs. Inducing apoptosis in ADSCs did not change the amount of LA secreted, and the CM of apoptotic ADSCs induced gene expression comparable to that of normal cells, indicating that, at least under the present conditions, no notable features of apoptotic ADSCs were observed. However, since nutlin-3 mildly induced apoptosis, it would be interesting to investigate the anti-inflammatory effects of apoptotic ADSCs under more severe conditions, such as ultraviolet irradiation.
As many researchers have pointed out, there is no doubt that anti-inflammatory cytokines and EVs contribute to the therapeutic effect of ADSCs [22, 23]. Some studies have also shown that the administered ADSCs regenerate tissues by differentiation [89, 90]. Therefore, we believe that the therapeutic effect of ADSCs is exerted not only by LA but also by various secretomes and differentiation capacities. In this regard, it would be interesting to assess whether the therapeutic effect is enhanced by combining multiple secretomes, as reported by Medina et al. [36]. Considering the clinical application of this study, the establishment of a new culture method (e.g., developing better culture medium and/or culture dishes) in such a way as to increase the secretory capacity of LA may help to improve the therapeutic outcome of ADSC. Furthermore, LA secretion of cultured ADSCs may be used as a novel biomarker to predict therapeutic effects. Although we have demonstrated a functional role of the metabolite secreted by ADSCs prepared from a limited number and background of people, it is not clear whether ADSCs from humans with different backgrounds (e.g., race, age, medical history, sex) also secrete large amounts of LA, which should be investigated in the future.