Vasoactive intestinal peptide reduces the inflammatory profile in mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi.

• Autor(a) principal: Higyno, Pulchéria Maria Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Mendes, Priscila Fagundes, Miranda, Marina Barcelos de, Pereira, Dario Elias, Mota, Ana Paula Lucas, Nogueira, Katiane de Oliveira Pinto Coelho, Caldas, Ivo Santana, Moura, Sandra Aparecida Lima de, Menezes, Cristiane Alves da Silva
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFOP
• Texto Completo: http://www.repositorio.ufop.br/handle/123456789/6623; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exppara.2015.09.004
• topic: Trypanosoma cruzi; Vasoactive intestinal peptide; Neuroimmunomodulation

Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) has gained great prominence because of its therapeutic potential, which is ascribed to its ability to regulate innate immunity, inhibit antigen-specific Th1 cell responses, and generate T regulatory cells. Additionally, VIP may act as a natural antimicrobial peptide, killing bacteria, fungi, and infective forms of Trypanosoma brucei. Despite the possible relevance of VIP during the course of Chagas disease, studies regarding this in human and experimental Trypanosoma cruzi infections remain poorly characterized. In this work, we evaluated the effects of VIP on systemic and cardiac immune responses during experimental acute infection. C57BL/6 mice were infected with 5000 trypomastigotes of the VL-10 strain of T. cruzi and treated with intraperitoneal VIP injection every other day for one month. After 30 days, we observed no reduction in parasitemia levels. However, we observed a reduction in serum levels of IFN-gamma and IL-2 and an increase in that of IL-4. These data suggest that VIP treatment modified immune responses to favor the Th2 response, which had no impact on parasitemia levels although the serum level of IFN-gamma was reduced. However, this change in immune balance reduced heart damage, as noted by the smaller cardiac volume and the moderate inflammatory.