immunology of infectious and parasitic diseases - XXXVII Congress ...

EVALUATION OF MACROPHAGE FUNCTION FROM HTLV-1 INFECTED
SUBJECTS
CAMILA FARIAS AMORIM 1 ; ANSELMO SOUZA 1 ; ANGELA GIUDICE 1 ;
SILVANE SANTOS 1 and EDGAR M CARVALHO 1 .
1 Serviço de Imunologia, Complexo Universitário Professor Edgard Santos,
Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brasil.
Introduction: The human T lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection
increases susceptibility and worsens the course of other infectious diseases,
such as strongyloidiasis and tuberculosis. Since that, it is possible that APCs
and/or lymphocytes from HTLV-1 infected individuals have defects in their
functions leading to inadequate adaptative immune response against other
infectious agent. In this viral infection there is an increased expression of
proinflammatory cytokines, and is possible that the constant stimulation of
macrophages take these cells to exhaustion. Alternatively, this activation may
increase microbicidal ability.
Methods and Results: We compared the macrophage function of HTLV-1
carriers (n=13) with soronegative healthy subjects (n=7), evaluating their ability
to phagocyte and kill L. braziliensis, analyzing the percentage of infected cells
and the number of amastigotes per 100 macrophages. Additionally we
determined TNF-, CXCL9 and CXCL10 levels. The percentage of infected
cells and the number of amastigotes per 100 cells were quite variable between
the two groups studied. There was a trend for lower percentage of infected cells
and lower number of amastigotes after 48 and 72 hours infection in cells from
HTLV-1 carriers but there was no statistic difference. The TNF-, CXCL9 and
CXCL10 levels were higher (p