Cellular sensing of extracellular purine nucleosides triggers an innate IFN-β response

Dhanwani, Rekha; Takahashi, Mariko; Mathews, Ian T.; Lenzi, Camille; Romanov, Artem; Watrous, Jeramie D.; Pieters, Bartijn; Hedrick, Catherine C.; Benedict, Chris A.; Linden, Joel; Nilsson, Roland; Jain, Mohit; Sharma, Sonia

Mechanisms linking immune sensing of DNA danger signals in the extracellular environment to innate pathways in the cytosol are poorly understood. Here, we identify a previously unidentified immune-metabolic axis by which cells respond to purine nucleosides and trigger a type I interferon-β (IFN-β) response. We find that depletion of ADA2, an ectoenzyme that catabolizes extracellular dAdo to dIno, or supplementation of dAdo or dIno stimulates IFN-β. Under conditions of reduced ADA2 enzyme activity, dAdo is transported into cells and undergoes catabolysis by the cytosolic isoenzyme ADA1, driving intracellular accumulation of dIno. dIno is a functional immunometabolite that interferes with the cellular methionine cycle by inhibiting SAM synthetase activity. Inhibition of SAM-dependent transmethylation drives epigenomic hypomethylation and overexpression of immune-stimulatory endogenous retroviral elements that engage cytosolic dsRNA sensors and induce IFN-β. We uncovered a previously unknown cellular signaling pathway that responds to extracellular DNA–derived metabolites, coupling nucleoside catabolism by adenosine deaminases to cellular IFN-β production.