- Immunoregulatory effect of vasoactive intestinal peptide in pregnant NOD mice

. V. ROCA, L. LAROCCA, M. CALAFAT, A. FRANCHI, R. RAMHORST AND C. PEREZ LEIRÓS

Los Cocos, Córdoba, Argentina

Simposio; . III Latin-American Symposium on Maternal-Fetal Interaction Placenta-Research & Clinical; 2007

Succesfull pregnancy is linked to a local proinflammatory response, swtching later to a Th2 profile. Prediabetic non-obese NOD mice offer a suitable model to study physiological and pathological process during pregnancy, since they spontaneously develop a Th1 autoimmunity exocrinopathy and modest reduction in birth and rate from 16 weeks on. Vasoactive instinal peptide (VIP) may play an interesting role in this model. VIP is a neuroimmune peptide that regulates inflammatory responses by promoting Th2 profiles and stimulating embryo growth. The goal of this work was to study the effect of VIP on the immune response of NOD mice, for this purpose 16-weeks-old either no pregnant (np) on pregnant at day 9 of gestation (p) NOD and BALB/c mice (control group) were used. Peritoneal macrophages from np NOD mice showed a higher proinflammatory response (IL-12, nitrites and TNF-alfa) that was equally reverse by VIP in both strains. Pregnancy normalized NOD macrophages cytokines levels.  To asses whether endogenous levels of VIP were altered in explants of NOD implantation sites, mRNA levels were semiquantified. NOD mice showed lower levels of VIP mRNA that BALA/c mice (p