bStatins are members of a class of pharmaceutical widely used to reduce high levels of serum cholesterol. In addition, statins have so-called "pleiotropic effects," which include inflammation reduction, immunomodulation, and antimicrobial effects. An increasing number of studies are emerging which detail the attenuation of bacterial growth and in vitro and in vivo virulence by statin treatment. In this review, we describe the current information available concerning the effects of statins on bacterial infections and provide insight regarding the potential use of these compounds as antimicrobial therapeutic agents. O ne of the major undisputed clinical breakthroughs of the 20th century was the discovery of the statin family of drugs. These compounds are renowned for their ability to lower cholesterol levels and are used to treat approximately 40 million individuals with high cholesterol levels worldwide. Since the discovery of mevastatin as a metabolic product of Penicillium citrinum in 1976 (1, 2), a total of nine statins have been characterized, seven of which are approved by the FDA to treat patients with high cholesterol. Structurally, statins are characterized by the presence of a conserved lactone ring (3). This structure is present as a hydrolyzed (active) form in all statins except for mevastatin, lovastatin, and simvastatin; in those statins, the lactone ring is hydrolyzed in the liver (4). Statins can be divided into two broad classes (Fig. 1). Type 1 statins are lipophilic and possess a butyryl side chain-they are said to structurally resemble mevastatin (3). Lovastatin, pravastatin, and simvastatin are type 1 statins. Type 2 statins are classically lipophobic and are distinguished from type 1 by the replacement of the butyryl side chain with a fluorophenol group and typically possess larger side chains than type 1 statins (3). Atorvastatin, cerivastatin, fluvastatin, pitavastatin, and rosuvastatin are type 2 statins.Statins exert their cholesterol-lowering effect by binding to the active site of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase (HMGR), a rate-limiting enzyme involved in cholesterol biosynthesis (3). HMGR is an integral part of the mevalonate pathway, which not only is essential for cholesterol biosynthesis but also contributes to the production of isoprenoids, lipid compounds that are essential for cell signaling and structure. As well as inhibition of cholesterol, statins have also been found to have a number of cholesterol-independent, socalled "pleiotropic" effects. Statins have been reported to confer anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and anticancer effects on host cells, and these effects are well characterized (5-9). Furthermore, several studies have explored the pleiotropic effects of statins in combating multisystem microbial infections, such as sepsis and pneumonia, and a growing number of studies are demonstrating that statins can directly influence the growth and virulence of bacterial pathogens. With the global increase in antibiotic resistance to existing antib...
Many links between gut microbiota and disease development have been established in recent years, with particular bacterial strains emerging as potential therapeutics rather than causative agents. In this study we describe the immunostimulatory properties of Enterococcus gallinarum MRx0518, a candidate live biotherapeutic with proven anti-tumorigenic efficacy. Here we demonstrate that strain MRx0518 elicits a strong pro-inflammatory response in key components of the innate immune system but also in intestinal epithelial cells. Using a flagellin knock-out derivative and purified recombinant protein, MRx0518 flagellin was shown to be a TLR5 and NF-κB activator in reporter cells and an inducer of IL-8 production by HT29-MTX cells. E. gallinarum flagellin proteins display a high level of sequence diversity and the flagellin produced by MRx0518 was shown to be more potent than flagellin from E. gallinarum DSM100110. Collectively, these data infer that flagellin may play a role in the therapeutic properties of E. gallinarum MRx0518.
The statin family of cholesterol-lowering drugs is known to have pleiotropic properties which include anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects. Statins exert their pleiotropic effects by altering expression of human immune regulators including pro-inflammatory cytokines. Previously we found that statins modulate virulence phenotypes of the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and sought to investigate if simvastatin could alter the host response to this organism in lung epithelial cells. Simvastatin increased the expression of the P. aeruginosa target genes KLF2, KLF6, IL-8 and CCL20. Furthermore, both simvastatin and P. aeruginosa induced alternative splicing of KLF6. The novel effect of simvastatin on wtKLF6 expression was found to be responsible for induction of the KLF6 regulated genes CCL20 and iNOS. Simvastatin also increased the adhesion of P. aeruginosa to host cells, without altering invasion or cytotoxicity. This study demonstrated that simvastatin had several novel effects on the pulmonary cellular immune response.
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