Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors alter blood glucose and insulin in obese mice but reduce inflammation independent of BTK

Obesity is associated with metabolic inflammation, which can contribute to insulin resistance, higher blood glucose, and higher insulin indicative of prediabetes progression. The nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome is a metabolic danger sensor implicated in metabolic inflammation. Many features of metabolic disease can activate the NLRP3 inflammasome; however, it is not yet clear which upstream triggers to target, and there are no clinically approved NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors for metabolic disease. Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) mediates activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Ibrutinib is the most-studied pharmacological inhibitor of BTK, and it can improve blood glucose control in obese mice. However, inhibitors of tyrosine kinases are permissive, and it is unknown if BTK inhibitors require BTK to alter endocrine control of metabolism or metabolic inflammation. We tested whether ibrutinib and acalabrutinib, a new generation BTK inhibitor with higher selectivity, require BTK to inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome, metabolic inflammation, and blood glucose in obese mice. Chronic ibrutinib administration lowered fasting blood glucose and improved glycemia, whereas acalabrutinib increased fasting insulin levels and increased markers of insulin resistance in high-fat diet-fed CBA/J mice with intact Btk. These metabolic effects of BTK inhibitors were absent in CBA/CaHN-Btk(xid)/J mice with mutant Btk. However, ibrutinib and acalabrutinib reduced NF-kappa B activity, proinflammatory gene expression, and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in macrophages with and without functional BTK. These data highlight that the BTK inhibitors can have divergent effects on metabolism and separate effects on metabolic inflammation that can occur independently of actions on BTK. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) is involved in immune function. It was thought that BTK inhibitors improve characteristics of obesity-related metabolic disease by lowering metabolic inflammation. However, tyrosine kinase inhibitors are permissive, and it was not known if different BTK inhibitors alter host metabolism or immunity through actions on BTK. We found that two BTK inhibitors had divergent effects on blood glucose and insulin via BTK, but inhibition of metabolic inflammation occurred independently of BTK in obese mice.