Figure 5.

HCQ Affects the Monocyte Lipidome

(A–E) PBMCs were stimulated with HKCA, HKCA+HCQ, or RPMI as a control for 24 h. Subsequently, monocytes were purified and analyzed for their lipid content using mass-spectrometry-based shotgun lipidomics (n = 3 per treatment group).

(A) Abundance of lipid classes as the molar percentage of all lipids per treatment group. HKCA alone induced a significant decrease in phosphatidylcholines and an increase in phosphatidylserines compared to control cells, whereas HCQ induced significant changes in multiple lipid classes compared to HKCA-treated cells. The inserted graph shows low-abundant lipids on a smaller scale.

(B and C) Analysis of acyl chain length of all lipids identified. HKCA training resulted in lipids with longer acyl chains than those of the control. HCQ induced even shorter acyl chains than the control.

(D and E) Analysis of double bonds in all lipids identified. HKCA training did not cause marked effects compared to control cells. HCQ-treated cells contained more lipids with fewer double bonds than HKCA-trained cells.

(F) Schematic representation of lipid metabolism showing lipid classes that are affected by either HKCA or HCQ treatment.

Data are presented as mean ± SEM; ^#p < 0.05 between control and HKCA; *p < 0.05, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗∗∗p < 0.001 between HKCA and HKCA+HCQ; one-way ANOVA with Tukey post-test.