Molecular hydrogen attenuates allergic airway inflammation by reversing the pathological shift from mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation to aerobic glycolysis that occurs in asthma. Hydrogen acts through multiple regulatory pathways including modulation of glycolytic enzymes, hypoxia-inducible factors, and sirtuins to restore normal energy metabolism and suppress inflammatory responses. These findings suggest hydrogen therapy may represent a novel therapeutic approach for managing allergic inflammatory diseases by targeting fundamental metabolic dysregulation.
Plain-Language Summary
This study examined how molecular hydrogen might reduce allergic airway inflammation (as seen in asthma) by affecting how cells produce energy. Researchers compared cells and lungs from asthmatic mice and asthmatic patients to healthy controls, finding that asthmatic inflammation was linked to a shift in how cells generate energy—moving away from the efficient mitochondrial system (the cell's power plant) toward a less efficient glucose-burning process. When researchers treated asthmatic mice with hydrogen dissolved in saline, the energy production shifted back to normal, and airway inflammation decreased.
Abstract
Mechanisms mediating the protective effects of molecular hydrogen (H2) are not well understood. This study explored the possibility that H2 exerts its anti-inflammatory effect by modulating energy metabolic pathway switch. Activities of glycolytic and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation systems were assessed in asthmatic patients and in mouse model of allergic airway inflammation. The effects of hydrogen treatment on airway inflammation and on changes in activities of these two pathways were evaluated. Monocytes from asthmatic patients and lungs from ovalbumin-sensitized and challenged mice had increased lactate production and glycolytic enzyme activities (enhanced glycolysis), accompanied by decreased ATP production and mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I and III activities (suppressed mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation), indicating an energy metabolic pathway switch. Treatment of ovalbumin-sensitized and challenged mice with hydrogen reversed the energy metabolic pathway switch, and mitigated airway inflammation. Hydrogen abrogated ovalbumin sensitization and challenge-induced upregulation of glycolytic enzymes and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, and downregulation of mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes and peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α. Hydrogen abrogated ovalbumin sensitization and challenge-induced sirtuins 1, 3, 5 and 6 downregulation. Our data demonstrates that allergic airway inflammation is associated with an energy metabolic pathway switch from oxidative phosphorylation to aerobic glycolysis. Hydrogen inhibits airway inflammation by reversing this switch. Hydrogen regulates energy metabolic reprogramming by acting at multiple levels in the energy metabolism regulation pathways.
