Abstract
Background
Parabens are widely used preservatives commonly found in foods, cosmetics, and industrial products. Several studies have examined the effects of parabens on human health owing to widespread and continuous exposure to them in daily life. However, little is known about their immune-regulatory effects.
Objective
Here, we aimed to investigate whether methylparaben, ethylparaben, and propylparaben affect the function of dendritic cells (DCs) as the most potent antigen-presenting cells that play a critical role in the initiation of adaptive immune responses.
Methods
Bone-marrow derived DCs (BMDCs) were treated with three types of parabens (methylparaben, ethylparaben, and propylparaben) for 12 h. Subsequently, the transcriptomic profile was analyzed using RNA sequencing with further gene set enrichment analysis based on commonly regulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs). To test whether parabens suppress the production of type-I interferons (IFN-I) in BMDCs during viral infection, BMDCs or paraben-treated BMDCs were infected with Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus (LCMV) at 10 multiplicity of infection (MOI) and measured the production of IFN-α1.
Results
Transcriptomic analyses revealed that all three types of parabens reduced the transcription levels of genes in virus infection-associated pathways, such as IFN-I responses in BMDCs. Furthermore, parabens considerably reduced IFN-α1 production in the virus-infected BMDCs.
Conclusion
Our study is the first to show that parabens may modulate anti-viral immune responses by regulating DCs.
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Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grants funded by the Korean government (No. 2021R1I1A1A01041639) and Korea Environment Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through “Digital Infrastructure Building Project for Monitoring, Surveying and Evaluating the Environmental Health Program” (Grant and Award Number: 2021003330007) funded by Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE). This research was supported by the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (No. 2022M3E5F1016861). This work was supported by the Ewha Womans University Research Grant of 2022.
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SH conceptualized and designed the study. IL, YJ, and HJ performed experiments. IL, YJ, HJ, and SH interpreted data. IL wrote the original draft. SH, JK, and YS reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Lee, IG., Joo, YH., Jeon, H. et al. Disruption of type I interferon pathway and reduced production of IFN-α by parabens in virus-infected dendritic cells. Genes Genom 45, 1117–1126 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-023-01421-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-023-01421-6