Inflammation is linked to several human diseases like microbial infections, cancer, heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and neurological disorders. We have shown that the prototype inflammatory agonist LPS modulates the activity of Ubiquitin-Proteasome System (UPS) and regulates transcription factors such as NF-κB, leading to inflammation, tolerance, hypoxia, autophagy, and apoptosis of cells. We hypothesized that proteasome modulators resveratrol and soybean lectin would alter the gene expression of mediators involved in inflammation-induced signaling pathways, when administered ex vivo to human peripheral blood mononuclear blood cells (PBMCs) obtained from normal healthy controls. To test this hypothesis, analysis of RNA derived from LPS-treated human PBMCs, with or without resveratrol and soybean lectin, was carried out using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). Collectively, the findings described herein suggest that proteasome modulators, resveratrol (proteasome inhibitor) and lectins (proteasome activator), have a profound capacity to modulate cytokine expression in response to proteasome modulators, as well as expression of mediators in multiple signaling pathways in PBMCs of control subjects. We show for the first-time that resveratrol downregulates expression of mediators involved in several key signaling pathways IFN-γ, IL-4, PSMB8 (LMP7), and a subset of LPS-induced genes, while lectins induced IFN-γ, IL-4, PSMB8, and many of the same genes as LPS that are important for innate and adaptive immunity. These findings suggest that inflammation may be influenced by common dietary components and this knowledge may be used to prevent or reverse inflammation-based diseases.

Diabetes is currently the fifth leading cause of death by disease in the USA. The underlying mechanisms for type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM2) and the enhanced susceptibility of such patients to inflammatory disorders and infections remain to be fully defined. We have recently shown that peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from non-diabetic people upregulate expression of inflammatory genes in response to proteasome modulators, such as bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and soybean lectin (LEC); in contrast, resveratrol (RES) downregulates this response. We hypothesized that LPS and LEC will also elicit a similar upregulation of gene expression of key signaling mediators in (PBMCs) from people with type 2 diabetes (PwD2, with chronic inflammation) ex vivo. Unexpectedly, using next generation sequencing (NGS), we show for the first time, that PBMCs from PwD2 failed to elicit a robust LPS- and LEC-induced gene expression of proteasome subunit LMP7 (PSMB8) and mediators of T cell signaling that were observed in non-diabetic controls. These repressed genes included: PSMB8, PSMB9, interferon-γ, interferon-λ, signal-transducer-and-activator-of-transcription-1 (STAT1), human leukocyte antigen (HLA DQB1, HLA DQA1) molecules, interleukin 12A, tumor necrosis factor-α, transporter associated with antigen processing 1 (TAP1), and several others, which showed a markedly weak upregulation with toxins in PBMCs from PwD2, as compared to those from non-diabetics. Resveratrol (proteasome inhibitor) further downregulated the gene expression of these inflammatory mediators in PBMCs from PwD2. These results might explain why PwD2 may be susceptible to infectious disease. LPS and toxins may be leading to inflammation, insulin resistance, and thus, metabolic changes in the host cells.