Unravelling the Protective Mechanisms Induced by Mucosal Immunization Against Neosporosis

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Ana Margarida Gomes Lobo da
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/17526
• topic: N. caninum; Endothelial Cells; Gamma Interferon; Interleukin 17; Mucosal Immunization

Neospora caninum is an intercellular parasite causatory of aggraveted monetery loss in the bovine industry. Although vaccination is the most cost-effective prevention strategy, no commercial vaccine is available. An intranasal vaccination strategy using membrane proteins formulated with CpG has show to be protective against N. caninum infection in mice. This study aimed to identify the main protective machanisms induce by immunization. The involvement of different cell populations responding to IFN-y in the immune protection against the parasite was assessed. Mice in which myeloid cells do not express the IFN-y receptor were more susceptible to neosporosis, yet more resistant than IFN-y-/- mice. Also, increased parasite burdens were observed in mice with endothelial cells unable to respond to IFn-y. The role of IL-17 in resistance to neosporosis was evaluated. Il-17 neutrlization in sham-vacinated mice did not change the parasite burdens, however, in vaccinated mice, IL-17 neutralization led to decreased parasite burden, suggesting that this cytokine could have a deleterious effect on resistance against N. caninum infection. These results evidence the importance of the IFN-y dependent activation of different cell populations in the control of N. caninum infection and identify myeloid and endothelial cells as important effectors in protection against neosporosis.