热处理或热疗是治疗许多疾病（尤其是癌症）的一种有前景的疗法，其历史可以追溯到数千年前。尽管历史悠久，但人们对热对人体细胞的细胞和分子影响知之甚少。因此，我们研究了水过滤红外 A (wIRA) 辐射（39°C，60 分钟）对人成纤维细胞和外周血单核细胞 (PBMC) 中关键细胞机制的影响，即自噬、线粒体功能和 mRNA 表达来自健康捐献者和肌痛性脑脊髓炎/慢性疲劳综合征（ME/CFS）患者。我们的结果表明，来自健康供体和 ME/CFS 患者的健康成纤维细胞和 PBMC 会诱导自噬。与健康捐献者相比，ME/CFS 患者的线粒体功能更高。 wIRA 治疗导致 ME/CFS 患者的 PBMC 线粒体功能略有下降，从而接近健康供体的线粒体功能水平。此外，还可以观察到自噬相关基因 MAP1LC3B 和 SIRT1 以及编码热休克蛋白的 HSPA1 mRNA 表达的激活。这些结果证实了人体细胞热处理对健康和疾病中关键细胞机制（即自噬和线粒体功能）的影响，并为 ME/CFS 患者的潜在治疗选择带来了希望。版权所有 © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. 保留所有权利。

Heat treatment or hyperthermia is a promising therapy for many diseases, especially cancer, and can be traced back thousands of years. Despite its long history, little is known about the cellular and molecular effects of heat on human cells. Therefore, we investigated the impact of water-filtered infrared-A (wIRA) irradiation (39 °C, 60 min) on key cellular mechanisms, namely autophagy, mitochondrial function and mRNA expression, in human fibroblasts and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy donors and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients. Our results show an induction of autophagy in healthy fibroblasts and PBMCs from healthy donors and ME/CFS patients. ME/CFS patients have higher mitochondrial function compared to healthy donors. The wIRA treatment leads to a slight reduction in mitochondrial function in PBMCs from ME/CFS patients, thereby approaching the level of mitochondrial function of healthy donors. Furthermore, an activation of the mRNA expression of the autophagy-related genes MAP1LC3B and SIRT1 as well as for HSPA1, which codes for a heat shock protein, can be observed. These results confirm an impact of heat treatment in human cells on key cellular mechanisms, namely autophagy and mitochondrial function, in health and disease, and provide hope for a potential treatment option for ME/CFS patients.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.