Inflammatory arthritis increases the susceptibility to acute immune-mediated hepatitis in mice through enhancing leptin expression in T cells

作者：Wang, Youyi; Wang, Ping; Xu, Qishan; Dong, Lijun; Liu, Yunzhi; Chen, Yu; Zhou, Jia; Lu, Xiao; Zuo, Daming^*; Chen, Qingyun^*

来源：Molecular Immunology, 2021, 140: 97-105.

DOI：10.1016/j.molimm.2021.09.015

• Inflammatory arthritis
• Immune-mediated hepatitis
• Concanavalin A
• T cells
• Leptin

Liver function abnormalities are common in patients with inflammatory arthritis. However, the precise mech-anism is still unclear. In this study, inflammatory arthritis was established in mice by subcutaneous injection of complete Freund's adjuvant, and the intravenous injection of concanavalin A (Con A) was employed to induce acute immune-mediated hepatitis in mice. The result showed that the arthritis mice were more susceptible to ConA-induced hepatitis than the control mice, as evidenced by increased hepatic necrosis, elevated serum alanine aminotransferase activity, and raised inflammatory cytokines. Besides, the in vitro assay demonstrated that the T cells from arthritis mice were more sensitive to the Con A stimulation than those from control mice. Moreover, we determined that the level of leptin, a kind of adipokine, was significantly increased in the serum and hepatic T cells of arthritis mice. Interestingly, the data indicated that the enhanced expression of leptin in hepatic T cells is responsible for the hypersensitivity of arthritis mice-derived T cells to Con A challenge. Collectively, our findings demonstrate an unexpected role of leptin in the connection between inflammatory arthritis and acute immune-mediated hepatitis, thus providing new insight into the clinical therapy of arthritis-related liver dysfunction.

• 单位
  南方医科大学; 广东省人民医院