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Inappropriate activation of Toll-like receptors(TLRs), on the other hand, contributes to development of a variety of human diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), bacterial sepsis, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and atherosclerosis. Upon infection or injury of tissue, the infected or damaged tissue releases various intracellular factors that can recruit and activate innate immune cells. Nucleic acids that originate from host cells or intracellular microorganisms can be recognized by nucleic acid-sensing TLRs and can result in the induction of pathological inflammatory responses . In patients with bacterial sepsis, toxic shock, SLE or rheumatoid arthritis, hypomethylated CpG DNAs, or RNAs have been detected in extracellular compartments and these extracellular nucleic acids have been correlated to the pathogenesis of these diseases. Although inhibition of one or two nucleic acid-sensing TLRs using receptor antagonists has been demonstrated to attenuate disease progression in polymicrobial sepsis and autoimmune disease models to some extent, the redundancy of the TLR family of proteins suggests that concurrent inhibition of all nucleic acid-sensing TLRswould be the most effective means to control nucleic acid-induced inflammation in humans. Because all the nucleic acid-sensing TLRs bind to RNA or DNA, albeit each TLR ligand contains a distinguishable molecular pattern, we hypothesized that agents that bind to DNAs and RNAs regardless of their sequence, structure or chemistry might be able to inhibit nucleic acid-mediated activation of all RNA- and DNA-sensing TLRs. Herein we demonstrate that certain cationic polymers can act as molecular scavengers and block the immune stimulatory effects of extracellular ssRNA, dsRNA, and unmethylated DNA. Nucleic Acid-Binding Polymers Inhibit Nucleic Acid-Mediated Activation of TLRs. We initially evaluated six agents known to bind nucleic acids for their ability to attenuate nucleic acid-mediated activation of TLRs on macrophages: polyphosphoramidate polymer (PPA-DPA), polyamidoamine dendrimer, 1,4-diaminobutane core-PAMAM-G3 (PAMAM-G3), poly-L-lysine, β-cyclodextrincontaining polycation (CDP), hexadimethrine bromide (HDMBr), and protamine sulfate. All of the compounds except protamine sulfate inhibit TLR3 activation by synthetic dsRNA, polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (poly I∶C) as measured by TNFα and IL-6 production and CD80 expression.Moreover three of the cationic polymers, CDP, HDMBr, and PAMAM-G3 inhibit the ability of synthetic CpG DNAs (CpG 1668) to activate TLR9. Similarly these three polymers inhibit the ability of ssRNA-lipid complexes (ssRNA40) to activate TLR7. Such cationic polymers are specific for nucleic acid-mediated activation of the TLRs. They do not inhibit activation of TLRs that recognize nonnucleic acid-based TLR agonists such as bacterial LPS, which activate TLR4, and Pam3CSK4, a synthetic bacterial lipoprotein, which activates the TLR2/1 complex. Furthermore CDP, HDMBr, and PAMAM-G3 neutralize immune stimulatory activity of all types of nucleic acid-based TLR agonists in a variety of primary cells including B cells, fibroblasts and dendritic cells (DCs) |
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