Vasoactive intestinal peptide degradation might influence Interleukin-17 expression in cardiac chagasic patients

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Francielle Beltrão
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Dutra, Walderez O., Gollob, Kenneth J., Reis, Edna Afonso, Oliveira, Ana Laura Grossi de, Rocha, Manoel Otávio da Costa, Menezes, Cristiane Alves da Silva
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/rimtsp/article/view/151781
• topic: Chagas disease; Tryptase; Chymase; Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP); Interleukin-17; IL-17

The vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) expression is lower in cardiac chagasic patients and is related to worse cardiac function. The reduction of VIP in patients with Chagas disease may be a result of its enhanced degradation. To test this hypothesis, the tryptase and chymase expression was evaluated. We also related VIP levels with interleukin-17 (IL17) expression since VIP may modulate IL-17 production. Plasma levels of chymase were higher in chagasic patients. Conversely, VIP/chymase and VIP/tryptase ratios were lower in chagasic patients when compared to non-infected individuals. Besides, the VIP/chymase ratio was lower in chagasic cardiac patients in comparison with the indeterminate group. A positive correlation between tryptase and chymase levels was observed in chagasic cardiac patients. In relation to IL-17, we observed a higher expression of this cytokine in the cardiac form of the disease than in the indeterminate form. IL-17/VIP ratio was higher in the cardiac form in comparison with non-infected or indeterminate form. These results suggest that the low levels of VIP observed in chagasic patients could be due to an increased production of chymase and/or to the additive effect of the interaction between chymase and tryptase in the cardiac form. Moreover, the decreased VIP expression may contribute to the increase of IL-17 in chagasic cardiac patients.