Ferroptosis Integrates Mitochondrial Derangements and Pathological Inflammation to Promote Pulmonary Hypertension

Mitochondrial dysfunction, characterized by impaired lipid metabolism and heightened reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, results in lipid peroxidation and ferroptosis. Ferroptosis is an inflammatory mode of cell death that promotes complement activation and macrophage recruitment. In pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), pulmonary arterial endothelial cells (PAEC) exhibit cellular phenotypes that promote ferroptosis. Moreover, there is ectopic complement deposition and inflammatory macrophage accumulation in the pulmonary vasculature. However, the effects of ferroptosis inhibition on these pathogenic mechanisms and the cellular landscape of the pulmonary vasculature are incompletely defined.

Multi-omics and physiological analyses evaluated how ferroptosis inhibition modulated preclinical PAH. The impact of AAV1-mediated expression of the pro-ferroptotic protein ACSL4 on PAH was determined, and a genetic association study in humans further probed the relationship between ferroptosis and pulmonary hypertension (PH).

Ferrostatin-1, a small-molecule ferroptosis inhibitor, mitigated PAH severity in monocrotaline rats. RNA-seq and proteomics analyses demonstrated ferroptosis was associated with PAH severity. RNA-seq, proteomics, and confocal microscopy revealed complement activation and pro-inflammatory cytokines/chemokines were suppressed by ferrostatin-1. Additionally, ferrostatin-1 combatted changes in endothelial, smooth muscle, and interstitial macrophage abundance and gene activation patterns as revealed by deconvolution RNA-seq. Ferroptotic PAEC damage associated molecular patterns restructured the transcriptomic signature, mitochondrial morphology, and promoted proliferation of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells, and created a pro-inflammatory phenotype in monocytes in vitro. AAV1-Acsl4 induced an inflammatory PAH phenotype in rats. Finally, single-nucleotide polymorphisms in six ferroptosis genes identified a potential link between ferroptosis and PH severity in the Vanderbilt BioVU repository.

Ferroptosis promotes PAH through metabolic and inflammatory mechanisms in the pulmonary vasculature.