Dietary supplementation of arachidonic acid promotes humoral immunity
Vaccination offers the most effective protection against contagious infectious diseases primarily by inducing humoral immunity. Vaccination efficacy is influenced by various factors. We report that dietary administration of arachidonic acid (ARA) significantly boosts rabies vaccine-induced production of neutralizing antibodies and protection against lethal rabies virus (RABV) infection in mice. In human volunteers, oral supplementation of ARA accelerates the expression of neutralizing antibodies to the levels sufficient for protection against RABV as early as one week after primary immunization. Mechanistically, ARA is enriched in lymph nodes and metabolized into immune modulators there. One of the ARA metabolites, prostaglandin I<sub>2</sub> (PGI<sub>2</sub>), via the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)-protein kinase A (PKA) axis, upregulates the expression of costimulatory molecule CD86, and activates activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) in B cells. These results suggest that ARA can be a potent dietary adjuvant to foster germinal center (GC) B cell response and humoral immunity.
Authors
- Penghua Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7332-1871)
- Mao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3802-7255)
- Zongmei Wang
- Enhao Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3796-3113)
- Yibin Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8088-3960)
- Shengyong Feng
- Gong Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7447-5488)
- Menglu Xi
- Celi Yang
- Wanbo Tai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9864-8993)
- Xiaona Na (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0107-252X)
- Ai Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1679-973X)
- Ling Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0569-8105)
- Han Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-7816-0207)
- Yuhan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4067-0709)
- Baolei Wu
- Haibing Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1155-2321)
- Xin Bao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2064-5266)
- M.-Y. Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2251-430X)
- Huicheng Shi
- Juzhen Li
Institutions
- Nanjing Tech University (CN)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Huazhong Agricultural University (CN)
- Southwest Forestry University (CN)
- King Center (US)
- Nanjing University of Industry Technology (CN)
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory (CN)
- Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CN)
- Vanke (China) (CN)
- Center for Life Sciences (CN)
- Beijing University of Chemical Technology (CN)
- UConn Health (US)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- EMBO Molecular Medicine
- Published
- 2025-09-12
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s44321-025-00310-7
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Immune Response and Inflammation
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.80