Effects of Parvovirus B19 In Vitro Infection on Monocytes from Patients with Systemic Sclerosis: Enhanced Inflammatory Pathways by Caspase-1 Activation and Cytokine Production

Parvovirus B19 (B19V) has been proposed as a triggering agent for some autoimmune diseases including systemic sclerosis (SSc). In this study, we investigated whether B19V infection in vitro differently activates inflammatory pathways, including those dependent on caspase-1 activation, in monocytes from patients with SSc and healthy controls. We showed that B19V can infect both THP-1 cells and primary monocytes but is not able to replicate in these cells. B19V infection increases the production of tumor necrosis factor-α and induces NLRP3-mediated caspase-1 activation in both THP-1 cells differentiated with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate and in monocytes from patients with SSc but not from healthy controls. B19V infection was sufficient for THP-1 to produce mature IL-1β. Monocytes from patients with SSc required an additional stimulus, here represented by lipopolysaccharides, to activate cytokine genes. Following B19V infection, however, lipopolysaccharide-activated monocytes from patients with SSc strongly increased the production of IL-1β and tumor necrosis factor-α. Altogether, these data suggest that viral components might potentiate the response to endogenous and/or exogenous toll-like receptor 4 ligands in monocytes from patients with SSc. The B19V-mediated activation of inflammatory pathways in monocytes might contribute to the disease progression and/or development of specific clinical phenotypes.