Expression of TGF beta, IL-12 and PPAR alpha by peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with chagas disease. effect of fenofibrate treatment in vitro

NEGRETE ALEJANDRO; PADO NILDA; PENAS FEDERICO; RADA JIMENA; GOREN NORA BEATRIZ; CEVEY ÁGATA; MIRKIN GERARDO; GAGLIARDI JUAN

C.A.B.A.

Congreso; Reunión Conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias; 2017

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica

Chagas disease is one of the main causes of cardiac failure inLatin America. About 30-40% of the infected people will developchronic chagasic cardiomyopathy leading to signifcant disability,with high economic and social impact.Control of host infection requires the development of an appropriate immune response that involves a delicate balance betweenproinflammatory and anti-inflammatory mechanisms.In this work we evaluated the expression of IL-12 and TGF-β in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of healthy (n=6) and Chagas disease patients with different stages of cardiac involvement(n=20). We observed a trend to increased expression of TGF-β andIL-12 according to the severity of cardiac involvement. A positiveSpearman correlation coeffcient was found between the levels ofexpression of TGF-β and IL-12 in PBMC, irrespectively of the clinicalstatus of Chagas disease patients (r=0.7921, p0.05).Then, we evaluated the effect of 100 µM Fenofbrate (a syntheticPPARα agonist) on the expression of TGF-β and IL-12 by culturedPBMC. PBMC with increased TGF-β (patients of stages II and III)displayed reduced expression of this cytokine (p