Pro-inflammatory effect of volcanic ash in a colitis model

ORSINI DELGADO, M. LUCÍA; PAPA GOBBI, RODRIGO; SAMBUELLI, ALICIA; GIL, ANIBAL; NEGREIRA, SILVIA; HUERNOS, SERGIO; GONCALVES, SILVINA; BELLICOSO, MARICEL; CHAVERO, PAULA; TIRADO, PABLO; DOCENA, GUILLERMO H.

Mar del Plata

Congreso; LXII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología; 2014

Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología

It is widely accepted the role of environmental factors in the pathogenesis of Inflammatory Bowel diseases (IBD): ulcerative colitis(UC) and Crohn´s Disease(CD).Recently, increased industrial pollutants and particulate matter have been related with an early debut and hospitalization of IBD. We hypothesized that volcanic pollution triggers severe IBD flares. In this work we studied the effect of volcanic ash (Puyehue, Neuquén) in the drinking water of a colitis model BALB/c mice received drinking water with or without volcanic ash for 14 days.On day 7 mice were intrarectally administered with different inflammatory stimuli: TNBS, Flagellin (FliC) or ethanol (EtOH), as control.Weight was daily monitored and on day 14 animals were sacrificed.Colon was removed and studied (weight, length, histology and cytokine expression by qPCR - IL1β, IL6,TNFα and IFNγ) We found that the pro-inflammatory stimuli induced a marked weight loss in mice receiving drinking water with ash compared with mice receiving only drinking water or treated with EtOH.Colon showed a greater ratio weight/length in animals that received ash compared with controls (28,4±4,4 vs 31,3±2,4 for EtOH vs EtOH+ash, 28,3±0,1 vs 33,7±4,2 for TNBS vs TNBS+ash and 24,7±4,01 vs 31,5±5,9 for FliC vs FliC+ash).The histologic activity index defined with H&E staining was: 1 vs 3 for EtOH vs EtOH+ash; 3,2±0,3 vs 4,3±0,6 for TNBS vs TNBS+ash and 2,3±0,6 vs 4 for FliC vs FliC+ash, with an increased cellular infiltration of the intestinal wall and vascularization in mice that received ash compared with controls.We found that TNF-α and IFN-γ expression was significantly increased in mice that received ash compared with controls(p