Toll-like receptor signaling rewires macrophage metabolism and promotes histone acetylation via ATP-citrate lyase

TLR activation induces inflammatory responses in macrophages by activating temporally defined transcriptional cascades within the first hours after stimulation. Whether concurrent changes in the cellular metabolism that occur upon TLR activation influence the quality of the transcriptional responses remain unknown. Here we investigated how macrophages adopt their metabolism early after activation to regulate TLR-inducible gene induction. Macrophages increase glucose metabolism and adopt fluxes through the TCA cycle to foster Citrate synthesis. We concomitantly observe activation of ATP-Citrate Lyase (Acly), resulting in augmented acetyl-CoA synthesis and histone acetylation. To investigate which genes and genes classes require ATP-citrate lyase activity for induction we stimulated bone marrow derived macrophages with LPS after ATP-citrate lyase inhibition. Overall design: Bone marrow-derived macrophages were stimulated with LPS for 4 hours in the presence or absence of the ATP-Citrate Lyase inhibitor BMS303141.