Abstract
While inflammation is an important immune response for protection from infections, excessive or prolonged inflammation can lead to a variety of debilitating diseases including skin disease, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, autoimmune diseases and cancer. Inflammation is a graded response that is typically initiated when resident macrophages sense the presence of pathogens or damage in the tissue and produce inflammatory cytokines and chemokines to kill the pathogen, clear debris and dead tissue, and initiate tissue repair. Here we show that copper-infused fabrics can prevent inflammation by blocking the production of inflammatory cytokines from macrophages after being exposed to LPS, a component of bacterial cell wall. Mechanistically, we show that copper-infused fabrics can significantly reduce the NF-κB and IRF3 activation in LPS-stimulated macrophages. Given the importance of excessive inflammation in diabetes, we show that copper can reduce insulin resistance mediated by inflammatory cytokines in muscle cells. Our data show that copper infused fabrics may be useful to reduce excessive inflammation in macrophages and improve insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscles.