Metabolic impact of vitamin D on U937 cells during TLR2/1 activation with Pam3CysSerLys4, a bacterial lipoprotein mimic

Abstract: Background: Bacterial infections remain one of the top causes of death worldwide despite the continuous development of conventional methods to eradicate this challenge. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), a causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), is amongst the leading causes of mycobacterial mortality worldwide. Given the constant increase in TB incidence rates, there is a great need for better diagnostic and treatment methods for M.tb. Several studies have proposed the possible therapeutic role of vitamin D in antimycobacterial immunity. Vitamin D has been shown to boost the immune system against several ailments including TB, however, the exact mechanism through which vitamin D functions in antimycobacterial immunity remains elusive. In addition, the current conventional methods used to study the metabolism of vitamin D in the presence of mycobacteria are limited in terms of efficiency. As such, applying metabolomics to elucidate bacterial activity and vitamin D supplementation effects, at cellular level, could provide insight into the metabolic reprogramming associated with vitamin D during mycobacterial infection. Metabolomics is a multidisciplinary ‘omics’ science that deals with the identification and quantification of the metabolic changes in a biological system under specific conditions...M.Sc. (Biochemistry