How Pathogen Exposure Order Influences Innate Immune
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International Journal of Molecular Sciences Review Exposome and Immunity Training: How Pathogen Exposure Order Influences Innate Immune Cell Lineage Commitment and Function , , Kevin Adams, K. Scott Weber * y and Steven M. Johnson * y Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] (K.S.W.); [email protected] (S.M.J.) Authors contributed equally to this work. y Received: 2 October 2020; Accepted: 9 November 2020; Published: 11 November 2020 Abstract: Immune memory is a defining characteristic of adaptive immunity, but recent work has shown that the activation of innate immunity can also improve responsiveness in subsequent exposures. This has been coined “trained immunity” and diverges with the perception that the innate immune system is primitive, non-specific, and reacts to novel and recurrent antigen exposures similarly. The “exposome” is the cumulative exposures (diet, exercise, environmental exposure, vaccination, genetics, etc.) an individual has experienced and provides a mechanism for the establishment of immune training or immunotolerance. It is becoming increasingly clear that trained immunity constitutes a delicate balance between the dose, duration, and order of exposures. Upon innate stimuli, trained immunity or tolerance is shaped by epigenetic and metabolic changes that alter hematopoietic stem cell lineage commitment and responses to infection. Due to the immunomodulatory role of the exposome, understanding innate immune training is critical for understanding why some individuals exhibit protective phenotypes while closely related individuals may experience immunotolerant effects (e.g., the order of exposure can result in completely divergent immune responses). Research on the exposome and trained immunity may be leveraged to identify key factors for improving vaccination development, altering inflammatory disease development, and introducing potential new prophylactic treatments, especially for diseases such as COVID-19, which is currently a major health issue for the world. Furthermore, continued exposome research may prevent many deleterious effects caused by immunotolerance that frequently result in host morbidity or mortality. Keywords: exposome; trained immunity; epigenetics; NK cells; monocytes; macrophages; dendritic cells; histone modification; DNA methylation; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2 1. Introduction Innate immunity is the first line of host defense against external exposures. While traditionally viewed as primitive and nonspecific, a growing body of clinical and experimental evidence argues the innate immune system develops memory as a result of previous exposures, allowing the innate system to respond with enhanced and broad immunological protection upon exposure to a secondary stimulus [1,2]. This biological process of enhanced innate immunity response on secondary pathogen exposure has been termed “trained immunity” [2,3]. Trained immunity shares many phenotypic and epigenetic characteristics with adaptive immune memory; however, one of the starkest distinctions is the propensity for trained immunity to develop against heterologous stimuli (Figure1). Innate memory is not antigen specific and is often protective against unrelated organisms, such as when vaccination Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21, 8462; doi:10.3390/ijms21228462 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijms Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21, 8462 2 of 26 Int. J. Mol.Int. J.Sci. 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The EXPOsOMICS project utilizes high-throughput The EXPOsOMICS project utilizes high-throughput sequencing and “omics” experiments to build sequencing and “omics” experiments to build models of lifetime exposures and their effects on models of lifetime exposures and their effects on human health [10,11]. human health [10,11]. Figure 2. The effect of the exposome on innate immunity. (A) The order of exposure to external stimuli can have an important effect on innate immunity. (B) These stimuli elicit various epigenetic and metabolic changes that in turn dictate (C) lineage commitment and the strength of the innate immune response, which ultimately determine (D) the health outcome of the affected individual. The blue and orange lines in (C) denote innate immunity activation (blue line) versus tolerization (orange line). Figure 2. The effect of the exposome on innate immunity. (A) The order of exposure to external stimuli