Inhibition of Autoimmune Chagas-Like Heart Disease by Bone Marrow Transplantation
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2014-12-18
Type of Work
Department
Program
Citation of Original Publication
Guimaro MC, Alves RM, Rose E, Sousa AO, de Cássia Rosa A, Hecht MM, et al. (2014) Inhibition of Autoimmune Chagas-Like Heart Disease by Bone Marrow Transplantation. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 8(12): e3384. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0003384
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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Subjects
Abstract
Background: Infection with the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi manifests in mammals as Chagas heart disease. The treatment
available for chagasic cardiomyopathy is unsatisfactory.
Methods/Principal Findings: To study the disease pathology and its inhibition, we employed a syngeneic chicken model
refractory to T. cruzi in which chickens hatched from T. cruzi inoculated eggs retained parasite kDNA (1.4 kb) minicircles.
Southern blotting with EcoRI genomic DNA digests revealed main 18 and 20 kb bands by hybridization with a radiolabeled
minicircle sequence. Breeding these chickens generated kDNA-mutated F1, F2, and F3 progeny. A targeted-primer TAIL-PCR
(tpTAIL-PCR) technique was employed to detect the kDNA integrations. Histocompatible reporter heart grafts were used to
detect ongoing inflammatory cardiomyopathy in kDNA-mutated chickens. Fluorochromes were used to label bone marrow
CD3+
, CD28+
, and CD45+ precursors of the thymus-dependent CD8a+ and CD8b+ effector cells that expressed TCRcd, vb1
and vb2 receptors, which infiltrated the adult hearts and the reporter heart grafts.
Conclusions/Significance: Genome modifications in kDNA-mutated chickens can be associated with disruption of immune
tolerance to compatible heart grafts and with rejection of the adult host’s heart and reporter graft, as well as tissue
destruction by effector lymphocytes. Autoimmune heart rejection was largely observed in chickens with kDNA mutations in
retrotransposons and in coding genes with roles in cell structure, metabolism, growth, and differentiation. Moreover, killing
the sick kDNA-mutated bone marrow cells with cytostatic and anti-folate drugs and transplanting healthy marrow cells
inhibited heart rejection. We report here for the first time that healthy bone marrow cells inhibited heart pathology in
kDNA+ chickens and thus prevented the genetically driven clinical manifestations of the disease.