Dietary Arginine Regulates Severity of Experimental Colitis and Affects the Colonic Microbiome.

There is great interest in safe and effective alternative therapies that could benefit patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). L-arginine (Arg) is a semi-essential amino acid with a variety of physiological effects. In this context, our aim was to investigate the role of dietary Arg in experimental colitis. We used two models of colitis in C57BL/6 mice, the dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) model of injury and repair, and Citrobacter rodentium infection. Animals were given diets containing (1) no Arg (Arg0), 6.4 g/kg (ArgNL), or 24.6 g/kg Arg (ArgHIGH); or (2) the amino acids downstream of Arg: 28 g/kg L-ornithine (OrnHIGH) or 72 g/kg L-proline (ProHIGH). Mice with DSS colitis receiving the ArgHIGH diet had increased levels of Arg, Orn, and Pro in the colon and improved body weight loss, colon length shortening, and histological injury compared to ArgNL and Arg0 diets. Histology was improved in the ArgNL vs. Arg0 group. OrnHIGH or ProHIGH diets did not provide protection. Reduction in colitis with ArgHIGH diet also occurred in C. rodentium-infected mice. Diversity of the intestinal microbiota was significantly enhanced in mice on the ArgHIGH diet compared to the ArgNL or Arg0 diets, with increased abundance of Bacteroidetes and decreased Verrucomicrobia. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of Arg is protective in colitis models. This may occur by restoring overall microbial diversity and Bacteroidetes prevalence. Our data provide a rationale for Arg as an adjunctive therapy in IBD.

Loss of solute carrier family 7 member 2 exacerbates inflammation-associated colon tumorigenesis.

Solute carrier family 7 member 2 (SLC7A2, also known as CAT2) is an inducible transporter of the semi-essential amino acid L-arginine (L-Arg), which has been implicated in wound repair. We have reported that both SLC7A2 expression and L-Arg availability are decreased in colonic tissues from inflammatory bowel disease patients and that mice lacking Slc7a2 exhibit a more severe disease course when exposed to dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) compared to wild-type (WT) mice. Here, we present evidence that SLC7A2 plays a role in modulating colon tumorigenesis in the azoxymethane (AOM)-DSS model of colitis-associated carcinogenesis (CAC). SLC7A2 was localized predominantly to colonic epithelial cells in WT mice. Utilizing the AOM-DSS model, Slc7a2-/- mice had significantly increased tumor number, burden, and risk of high-grade dysplasia vs. WT mice. Tumors from Slc7a2-/- mice exhibited significantly increased levels of the proinflammatory cytokines/chemokines IL-1ß, CXCL1, CXCL5, IL-3, CXCL2, CCL3, and CCL4, but decreased levels of IL-4, CXCL9, and CXCL10 compared to tumors from WT mice. This was accompanied by a shift toward pro-tumorigenic M2 macrophage activation in Slc7a2-deficient mice, as marked by increased colonic CD11b+F4/80+ARG1+ cells with no alteration in CD11b+F4/80+NOS2+ cells by flow cytometry and immunofluorescence microscopy. The shift toward M2 macrophage activation was confirmed in bone marrow-derived macrophages from Slc7a2-/- mice. In bone marrow chimeras between Slc7a2-/- and WT mice, the recipient genotype drove the CAC phenotype, suggesting the importance of epithelial SLC7A2 in abrogating neoplastic risk. These data reveal that SLC7A2 has a significant role in the protection from CAC in the setting of chronic colitis, and suggest that the decreased SLC7A2 in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may contribute to CAC risk. Strategies to enhance L-Arg availability by supplementing L-Arg and/or increasing L-Arg uptake could represent a therapeutic approach in IBD to reduce the substantial long-term risk of colorectal carcinoma.

Deletion of cationic amino acid transporter 2 exacerbates dextran sulfate sodium colitis and leads to an IL-17-predominant T cell response.

L-Arginine (L-Arg) is a semiessential amino acid that has altered availability in human ulcerative colitis (UC), a form of inflammatory bowel disease, and is beneficial in murine colitis induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS), a model with similarity to UC. We assessed the role of cationic amino acid transporter 2 (CAT2), the inducible transporter of L-Arg, in DSS colitis. Expression of CAT2 was upregulated in tissues from colitic mice and localized predominantly to colonic macrophages. CAT2-deficient (CAT2-/-) mice exposed to DSS exhibited worsening of survival, body weight loss, colon weight, and histological injury. These effects were associated with increased serum L-Arg and decreased tissue L-Arg uptake and inducible nitric oxide synthase protein expression. Clinical benefits of L-Arg supplementation in wild-type mice were lost in CAT2-/- mice. There was increased infiltration of macrophages, dendritic cells, granulocytes, and T cells in colitic CAT2-/- compared with wild-type mice. Cytokine profiling revealed increases in proinflammatory granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, macrophage inflammatory protein-1α, IL-15, and regulated and normal T cell-expressed and -secreted and a shift from an IFN-γ- to an IL-17-predominant T cell response, as well as an increase in IL-13, in tissues from colitic CAT2-/- mice. However, there were no increases in other T helper cell type 2 cytokines, nor was there a global increase in macrophage-derived proinflammatory cytokines. The increase in IL-17 derived from both CD4 and γδ T cells and was associated with colonic IL-6 expression. Thus CAT2 plays an important role in controlling inflammation and IL-17 activation in an injury model of colitis, and impaired L-Arg availability may contribute to UC pathogenesis.

L-arginine supplementation improves responses to injury and inflammation in dextran sulfate sodium colitis.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), consisting of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (UC), results in substantial morbidity and is difficult to treat. New strategies for adjunct therapies are needed. One candidate is the semi-essential amino acid, L-arginine (L-Arg), a complementary medicine purported to be an enhancer of immunity and vitality in the lay media. Using dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) as a murine colonic injury and repair model with similarities to human UC, we assessed the effect of L-Arg, as DSS induced increases in colonic expression of the y(+) cationic amino acid transporter 2 (CAT2) and L-Arg uptake. L-Arg supplementation improved the clinical parameters of survival, body weight loss, and colon weight, and reduced colonic permeability and the number of myeloperoxidase-positive neutrophils in DSS colitis. Luminex-based multi-analyte profiling demonstrated that there was a marked reduction in proinflammatory cytokine and chemokine expression with L-Arg treatment. Genomic analysis by microarray demonstrated that DSS-treated mice supplemented with L-Arg clustered more closely with mice not exposed to DSS than to those receiving DSS alone, and revealed that multiple genes that were upregulated or downregulated with DSS alone exhibited normalization of expression with L-Arg supplementation. Additionally, L-Arg treatment of mice with DSS colitis resulted in increased ex vivo migration of colonic epithelial cells, suggestive of increased capacity for wound repair. Because CAT2 induction was sustained during L-Arg treatment and inducible nitric oxide (NO) synthase (iNOS) requires uptake of L-Arg for generation of NO, we tested the effect of L-Arg in iNOS(-/-) mice and found that its benefits in DSS colitis were eliminated. These preclinical studies indicate that L-Arg supplementation could be a potential therapy for IBD, and that one mechanism of action may be functional enhancement of iNOS activity.