Leading hypotheses to explain helminth-mediated protection against autoimmunity postulate that type 2 or regulatory immune responses induced by helminth infections in the host limit pathogenic Th1-driven autoimmune responses.
We tested these hypotheses by investigating whether infection with the filarial nematode Litomosoides sigmodontis prevents diabetes onset in IL-4-deficient NOD mice and whether depletion or absence of regulatory T cells, IL-10, or TGF-β alters helminth-mediated protection.
In contrast to IL-4-competent NOD mice, IL-4-deficient NOD mice failed to develop a type 2 shift in either cytokine or Ab production during L. sigmodontis infection.
Despite the absence of a type 2 immune shift, infection of IL-4-deficient NOD mice with L. sigmodontis prevented diabetes onset in all mice studied.
Infections in immunocompetent and IL-4-deficient NOD mice were accompanied by increases in CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) regulatory T cell frequencies and numbers, respectively, and helminth infection increased the proliferation of CD4(+)Foxp3(+) cells. However, depletion of CD25(+) cells in NOD mice or Foxp3(+) T cells from splenocytes transferred into NOD.scid mice did not decrease helminth-mediated protection against diabetes onset.
Continuous depletion of the anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-β, but not blockade of IL-10 signaling, prevented the beneficial effect of helminth infection on diabetes.
Changes in Th17 responses did not seem to play an important role in helminth-mediated protection against autoimmunity, because helminth infection was not associated with a decreased Th17 immune response.
This study demonstrates that L. sigmodontis-mediated protection against diabetes in NOD mice is not dependent on the induction of a type 2 immune shift but does require TGF-β.
2012-01-06
Eng.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.
J Immunol. 2012 Jan;188(2):559-68
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