Formaldehyde aggravates allergic contact dermatitis by facilitating NLRP3 inflammasome activation in macrophages

Formaldehyde (FA) is known to be an environmental pollutant and contact sensitizer at 1 % or 2 % concentrations, which can induce inflammatory diseases such as allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). However, the aggravative effects of FA on ACD at legitimate low concentrations in cosmetics have not been studied. The activation of NOD-, LRR- and pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome in ACD was recently identified, and the inflammatory responses were attenuated by NLRP3 inhibition. Since non-cytotoxic concentrations of FA at 50 and 100 μM were found to reinforce inflammatory responses in macrophages, the 0.05 % low concentration of FA was applied to ACD mice induced by 2,4-dinitro-1-fluorobenzene. FA significantly exacerbated inflammatory responses and NLRP3 inflammasome activation, which was confirmed in RAW264.7 macrophages treated with FA at 50 and 100 μM in vitro. Induction of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species, the common activation signal for NLRP3 inflammasome, was also observed in FA-treated macrophages. Inhibition of NLRP3 by MCC950 significantly attenuated the NLRP3 inflammasome activation induced by 100 μM FA in vitro and alleviated FA-enhanced inflammatory responses in ACD mice. These results not only demonstrated that FA was able to aggravate the inflammatory responses of ACD by facilitating NLRP3 inflammasome activation in macrophages, which was likely to play important roles in FA-related sensitization, but also indicated that NLRP3 could be targeted to relieve FA-induced inflammation.