PPARdelta modulates lipopolysaccharide-induced TNFalpha inflammation signaling in cultured cardiomyocytes

Peroxisome proliferator activated receptors (PPARs: PPARalpha, gamma and delta) regulate fatty acid metabolism, glucose homeostasis, cell proliferation, differentiation and inflammation. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) is one of the important pathological factors in inflammatory responses during the pathological progression of myocardial ischemic/reperfusion and hypertrophy. Accumulating evidence shows that synthetic ligands of PPARalpha and PPARgamma suppress myocardial inflammatory responses, such as the production of TNFalpha, thus exerting beneficial effects in animals who had undergone ischemia/reperfusion injury or cardiac hypertrophy. However, it remains obscured if PPARdelta and its ligands exert any effect on the production of TNFalpha, thus influencing cardiac inflammatory responses. In this study, we investigated the effects of PPARdelta and its synthetic ligand GW0742 on TNFalpha production in cultured cardiomyocytes. Our studies indicate that a PPARdelta-selective ligand inhibited lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced TNFalpha production from cardiomyocytes. Adenoviral-mediated overexpression of PPARdelta substantially inhibited TNFalpha expression in cultured cardiomyocytes compared to controls, whereas overexpression of a PPARdelta mutant with ablated ligand binding domain did not show similar effect. Conversely, absence of PPARdelta in cardiomyocytes further exaggerated LPS-induced TNFalpha production. Moreover, activation of PPARdelta abrogated LPS-induced degradation of IkappaBs, thus suppressing LPS-induced nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB) activities. Therefore, PPARdelta is an important determinant of TNFalpha expression via the NF-kappaB signaling pathway, thus serving as therapeutic targets to attenuate inflammation that are involved in cardiac pathological progression.