Caffeine Has Different Immunomodulatory Effect on the Cytokine Expression and NLRP3 Inflammasome Function in Various Human Macrophage Subpopulations

Besides its well-known psychoactive effects, caffeine has a broad range of actions. It regulates several physiological mechanisms as well as modulates both native and adaptive immune responses by various ways. Although caffeine is assumed to be a negative regulator of inflammation, the effect on the secretion of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines is highly controversial. Macrophages are major mediators of inflammatory responses; however, the various subpopulations develop different effects ranging from the initiation to the resolution of inflammation. Here we report a comparative analysis of the effect of caffeine on two subpopulations of human monocyte-derived macrophages differentiated in the presence of macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) or granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), resulting in M-M phi s and GM-M phi s, respectively. We showed that although TNF-alpha secretion was downregulated in both LPS-activated M phi subtypes by caffeine, the secretion of IL-8, IL-6, and IL-1 beta as well as the expression of Nod-like receptors was enhanced in M-M phi s, while it did not change in GM-M phi s. We showed that caffeine (1) altered adenosine receptor expression, (2) changed Akt/AMPK/mTOR signaling pathways, and (3) inhibited STAT1/IL-10 signaling axis in M-M phi s. We hypothesized that these alterations play an important modulatory role in the upregulation of NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated IL-1 beta secretion in LPS-activated M-M phi s following caffeine treatment.