Healthy individuals and dyslipidemic patients show similar
levels of metabolic monocytes.
One common characteristic of obesity and metabolic syndrome is the
chronic inflammatory state . It has been documented the macrophages in
these pathologies undergo a phenotypic switch from anti-inflammatory to
inflammatory phenotype. To determine whether diseases such as
dyslipidemia are conditioning circulating monocytes to express metabolic
markers, we evaluated the percentages of these cells from subjects with
elevated lipid levels (triglycerides >150 mg/dl, total
cholesterol >200 mg/dl) and compared them with the
percentages from healthy subjects. We evaluated the cell populations
with 2 (ABCA1, CD36) and 3 (ABCA1, CD36, PLIN2) phenotypic markers and
found that metabolic monocytes percentages do not differ between healthy
individuals and those with dyslipidemia
(not statistically significant (NS);
Fig 2A), and CD14 expression seems not to have influence in this context
(NS; Fig 2B). Additionally, relative expression of PPAR-γ mRNA in
monocytes from healthy individuals and patients with dyslipidemia was
similar (NS; Fig 2A). Furthermore, we did not find a relationship
between the percentages of metabolic monocytes and lipid levels (NS; Fig
2C) or body mass index (NS; Fig 2D) in subjects with dyslipidemia.