Nasal administration of Lactobacillus rhamnosus improves the number and activity of lung antigen-presenting cells in malnourished mice

NATALIA BARBIERI, JULIO VILLENA, MATÍAS HERRERA, SUSANA SALVA AND SUSANA ALVAREZ

Congreso; LXI Reunión Científica Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología; 2013

In this work, we studied the effect of nasally administered Lactobacillus rhamnosus CRL1505 (Lr) on the number and activity of lung antigen-presenting cells (APC), during the dietary recovery of malnourished mice. Weaned mice were malnourished with a protein-free diet (PFD) for 21d. Malnourished mice received balanced conventional diet (BD) during 7d (BD group) or BD with nasal Lr supplementation (108cells/mouse/d) during last 2 days of the treatment (BD+Lr group). The malnourished control mice (MC) received PFD while the well-nourished control group (WC) consumed BD. Changes in lung CD11c-CD11b+F4-80+monocytes (Mo), CD11c+CD11b-/lowF4-80+AF+macrophages (Ma) and myeloid CD11c+F4-80-AF-CD11b+ and CD11c+F4-80-AF-B220+ plasmacytoid dendritic cells (DC) were evaluated by flow cytometric analysis. In addition, MHC-II expression in these cell populations was studied. Malnutrition significantly reduced the number of lung Mo, Ma and DCs (p