CD38 Deficiency Protects Mice from High Fat Diet-Induced Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease through Activating NAD+/Sirtuins Signaling Pathways-Mediated Inhibition of Lipid Accumulation and Oxidative Stress in Hepatocytes.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is characterized by excessive lipid accumulation in hepatocytes. CD38 was initially identified as a lymphocyte surface antigen and then has been found to exist in a variety of cell types. Our previous studies showed that CD38-/- mice were resistant to high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity. However, the role and mechanism of CD38 in HFD-induced NAFLD is still unclear. Here, we reported that CD38-/- mice significantly alleviated HFD-induced hepatic steatosis. HFD or oleic acid (OA) remarkably increased the mRNA and protein expressions of CD38 in mouse hepatic tissues and primary hepatocytes or hepatic cell lines in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that CD38 might play a role in HFD-induced hepatic steatosis. We observed that CD38 deficiency markedly decreased HFD- or OA-induced the lipid accumulation and oxidative stress in CD38-/- livers or primary hepatocytes, respectively. In contrast, overexpression of CD38 in Hep1-6 cells aggravated OA-induced lipid accumulation and oxidative stress. Furthermore, CD38 deficiency markedly inhibited HFD- or OA-induced the expressions of NOX4, and increased the expression of PPARα, CPT1, ACOX1 and SOD2 in liver tissue and hepatocytes from CD38-/- mice, indicating that CD38 deficiency-mediated the enhancement of fatty acid oxidation and the inhibition of oxidative stress contributed to protecting NAFLD. More importantly, Ex527 (Sirt1 inhibitor) and 3-TYP (Sirt3 inhibitor) significantly enhanced OA-induced lipid accumulation and oxidative stress in CD38-/- primary hepatocytes, suggesting that the anti-lipid accumulation of CD38 deficiency might be dependent on NAD/Sirtuins-mediated enhancement of FAA ß-oxidation and suppression of oxidative stress in hepatocytes. In conclusion, we demonstrated that CD38 deficiency protected mice from HFD-induced NAFLD by reducing lipid accumulation and suppressing oxidative stress via activating NAD/Sirtuins signaling pathways.

CD38 Deficiency Alleviates D-Galactose-Induced Myocardial Cell Senescence Through NAD+/Sirt1 Signaling Pathway.

Our previous research showed that CD38 played vital roles in Ang-II induced hypertrophy and high fat diet induced heart injury. However, the role of CD38 in heart aging is still unknown. In the present study, we reported that CD38 knockdown significantly protected cardiomyocytes from D-galactose (D-gal)-induced cellular senescence. Cellular senescence was evaluated by ß-galactosidase staining, the expressions of genes closely related to aging including p16 and p21, and the ROS production, MDA content and the expressions of oxidant stress related genes were examined by biochemical analysis, Western blot and QPCR. Our results showed that the expression of CD38 was increased in H9c2 cells after D-gal treatment and the expressions of NAMPT and Sirt1 were downregulated in heart tissue from old mice. CD38 knockdown significantly reduced the number of SA-ß-gal-positive cells and the expressions of p16 and p21 in H9c2 cells with or without D-gal treatment. The acetylation level of total protein was decreased in CD38 knockdown group, but the expression of Sirt3 was increased in CD38 knockdown group treated with D-gal. In addition, knockdown of CD38 significantly attenuated D-gal induced ROS production, MDA content and NOX4 expression in the cells. Inhibition Sirt1 partially reversed the effects of CD38 knockdown on D-gal induced senescence and oxidative stress. Furthermore, NAD+ supplementation reduced D-gal induced cellular senescence, ROS production and MDA content. The expression of SOD2 was increased and the NOX4 expression was decreased in H9c2 cells after NAD+ supplementation. Taken together, our results demonstrated that CD38 knockdown alleviated D-gal induced cell senescence and oxidative stress via NAD+/Sirt1 signaling pathway.

CD38 deficiency suppresses adipogenesis and lipogenesis in adipose tissues through activating Sirt1/PPARγ signaling pathway.

It has been recently reported that CD38 was highly expressed in adipose tissues from obese people and CD38-deficient mice were resistant to high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity. However, the role of CD38 in the regulation of adipogenesis and lipogenesis is unknown. In this study, to explore the roles of CD38 in adipogenesis and lipogenesis in vivo and in vitro, obesity models were generated with male CD38-/- and WT mice fed with HFD. The adipocyte differentiations were induced with MEFs from WT and CD38-/- mice, 3T3-L1 and C3H10T1/2 cells in vitro. The lipid accumulations and the alternations of CD38 and the genes involved in adipogenesis and lipogenesis were determined with the adipose tissues from the HFD-fed mice or the MEFs, 3T3-L1 and C3H10T1/2 cells during induction of adipocyte differentiation. The results showed that CD38-/- male mice were significantly resistant to HFD-induced obesity. CD38 expressions in adipocytes were significantly increased in WT mice fed with HFD, and the similar results were obtained from WT MEFs, 3T3-L1 and C3H10T1/2 during induction of adipocyte differentiation. The expressions of PPARγ, AP2 and C/EBPα were markedly attenuated in adipocytes from HFD-fed CD38-/- mice and CD38-/- MEFs at late stage of adipocyte differentiation. Moreover, the expressions of SREBP1 and FASN were also significantly decreased in CD38-/- MEFs. Finally, the CD38 deficiency-mediated activations of Sirt1 signalling were up-regulated or down-regulated by resveratrol and nicotinamide, respectively. These results suggest that CD38 deficiency impairs adipogenesis and lipogenesis through activating Sirt1/PPARγ-FASN signalling pathway during the development of obesity.

Inhibition of NAMPT aggravates high fat diet-induced hepatic steatosis in mice through regulating Sirt1/AMPKα/SREBP1 signaling pathway.

BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is one of the most common liver diseases in the world and is a typical hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome which is characterized with lipid accumulation in liver. Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) has been recently identified as an enzyme involved in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) biosynthesis and plays an important role in cellular metabolism in variety of organs in mammals. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of NAMPT on high fat diet-induced hepatic steatosis. METHODS: Hepatic steatosis model was induced by high fat diet (HFD) in C57BL/6 mice in vivo. HepG2 and Hep1-6 hepatocytes were transfected with NAMPT vector plasmid or treated with NAMPT inhibitor FK866 and then incubated with oleic acid. Lipids accumulation was examined by HE staining or oil red staining. Quantitative RT-PCR and Western blot were used to measure expressions of the genes involved in lipogenic synthesis. RESULTS: FK866 significantly promoted liver steatosis in the mice fed with HFD and hepatic lipid accumulation in vitro, accompanied by the increases of the expressions of lipogenic genes such as sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP1) and fatty acid synthase (FASN). Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) and NAD+ significantly rescued the actions of FK866 in vitro. In contrast, overexpression of NAMPT in HepG2 and Hep1-6 hepatocytes ameliorated hepatic lipid accumulation. In addition, FK866 decreased the protein levels of Sirt1 and phospho-AMPKα in liver of the HFD fed mice. Furthermore, Resveratrol, a Sirt1 activator, significantly reduced lipogenic gene expressions, while EX-527, a Sirt1 specific inhibitor, had the opposite effects. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrated that inhibition of NAMPT aggravated the HFD- or oleic acid-induced hepatic steatosis through suppressing Sirt1-mediated signaling pathway. On the one hand, the inhibition of NAMPT reduced the production of NAD+ through inhibiting the NAD+ salvage pathway, resulting in the decrease of Sirt1 activity, and then attenuated the deacetylation of SREBP1 in which the inhibition of SREBP1 activity promoted the expressions of FASN and ACC. On the other hand, the reduced Sirt1 activity alleviated the activation of AMPKα to further enhance SREBP1 activities.

CD38 Deficiency Protects the Heart from Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury through Activating SIRT1/FOXOs-Mediated Antioxidative Stress Pathway.

Ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury induces irreversible oxidative stress damage to the cardiac muscle. We previously observed that CD38 deficiency remarkably protects mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) from oxidative stress-induced injury. However, whether CD38 deficiency protects from I/R injury in the heart is not explored. Here, we showed that the hearts of CD38 deficient mice or wild type mice supplied with exogenous NAD were significantly protected from ischemia/reperfusion injury, seen as reduction of the myocardial infarct sizes when the mice were subjected to 30 min ischemia followed by 24 hours of reperfusion. Consistently, the protection of CD38 deficiency on hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) injury was confirmed with a CD38 knockdown H9c2 stable cell line. Furthermore, we observed that knockdown of CD38 remarkably inhibited ROS generation and intracellular Ca(2+) overloading induced by H/R in H9c2 cells. The FOXO1 and FOXO3 expressions were significantly elevated by H/R injury in CD38 knockdown cells compared with normal H9c2 cells. The cell immunofluorescence assay showed that FOXO1 nuclear translocation was significantly increased in CD38 knockdown H9c2 cells. In addition, we demonstrated that the increase of FOXO1 nuclear translocation was associated with the increased expressions of antioxidant catalase and SOD2 and the attenuated expression of the ROS generation enzyme NOX4. In conclusion, our results provide new evidence that CD38 deficiency protects the heart from I/R injury through activating SIRT1/FOXOs-mediated antioxidative stress pathway.