Vanin-pantethine metabolic axis shapes dendritic cell function and affects inflammatory disorder progression.

Vanin-pantethine-cholesterol axis governs dendritic cell activation, with Vanin upregulated in activated DCs from autoimmune patients and mice and linked to psoriasiform inflammation.

• Why it matters: Aberrant DC activation drives inflammatory diseases, but DC-targeted metabolic therapies remain underexplored, leaving a gap in actionable metabolic control points.
• What they did: The study mapped the Vanin-pantethine-cholesterol pathway in DCs, tested DC-specific Vanin deficiency in mice, and used pantethine supplementation or pharmacologic Vanin inhibition to measure cholesterol/lipid raft buildup and DC activation.
• The result: DC-specific Vanin deficiency significantly alleviated psoriasiform inflammation in mice, and pantethine or RR6 impaired activation of patient-derived DCs; an investigator-initiated trial found pantethine combination therapy relieved clinical symptoms in psoriasis patients.