A conserved Foxp1-Pde4d axis regulates inflammatory responsiveness

Inflammatory responses are heterogeneous, even among cells exposed to a common insult, yet the regulatory mechanisms that distinguish these inflammatory states remain poorly understood. Here, we leveraged inflammatory state heterogeneity to identify a conserved Foxp1-Pde4d regulatory relationship and uncover a role for this axis in preserving inflammatory responsiveness. Genotoxic stress in adipocyte progenitors generated heterogeneous engagement of type-I interferon (IFN) and NFκB transcriptional programmes, and transcriptome-wide analysis independently identified Foxp1 and the cAMP phosphodiesterase Pde4d among genes associated with lower IFN- and higher NFκB-associated transcription. ChIP-seq revealed selective loss of Foxp1 occupancy at a Pde4d-associated regulatory element following genotoxic stress, while Foxp1 gain- and loss-of-function established Foxp1 as a positive regulator of Pde4d expression. Remarkably, coupling of Foxp1-Pde4d expression was broadly conserved across vertebrate tissues and damage models. In vivo, Foxp1 loss in zebrafish revealed a striking dissociation between inflammatory state and response capacity: basal NFκB activity was elevated, yet injury-induced NFκB activation was markedly blunted and macrophage recruitment impaired. Adenylyl cyclase inhibition restored macrophage recruitment in Foxp1-deficient zebrafish, functionally linking the Foxp1 phenotype to cAMP signalling and supporting a model in which Foxp1-Pde4d regulation preserves inflammatory responsiveness through control of cAMP. Together, these findings show how inflammatory-state heterogeneity can reveal conserved regulatory mechanisms linking basal cellular state to subsequent response capacity.