Galectin-8: anti-inflammatory role during Trypanosoma cruzi chronic infection

SABORIT, JUAN I; BERTELLI, A; POSTAN, M; LEGUIZAMÓN, MARÍA S.

Congreso; Annual Meeting Society for Glycobiology; 2022

Galectins are lectins with affinity for beta-galactosides that are involved in multiple biological activities. Galectin-8 (Gal-8), a tandem repeat galectin, is widely distributed in different tissues and participates in diverse biological processes such as adhesion, migration and apoptosis. However, different authors have described Gal-8 is involved both in pro- and anti-inflammatory processes, thus its role during inflammatory development remains controversial. For this reason, we aimed to analyze the role of this galectin in a chronic inflammatory context induced by Trypanosoma cruzi infection in mice.Protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi is the causal agent of Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, which according to the World Health Organization currently affects 7 million people worldwide. Although 70% of patients are asymptomatic, the remaining 30% develops the typical cardiomyopathy of Chagas disease. This cardiomyopathy is triggered by a strong inflammatory response induced by parasite persistence in the tissue, followed by a severe myocardial fibrosis that replaces damaged tissue and leads to a marked hypertrophy and cardiac failure. Chagas chronic disease can be transmitted not only through its insect vector, but also by transfusion and congenital route. Taken together with the migration from endemic areas to USA, European Union and Australia, Chagas disease, already a major health, social and economic concern in Latin America, has also become an important issue in those areas.Results from our lab have shown Gal-8 has an anti-inflammatory role in cardiac tissue. We found that macrophage and neutrophil populations were significantly increased in infected Gal-8KO mice, compared to infected C57BL/6J, at 5 months post-infection (Bertelli et al., doi:10.3389/fcimb.2020.00285). Considering that T. cruzi presents a strong myotropism to both cardiac and skeletal muscle cells, and that this chronic infection also alters the movement of mice hind legs, we analyzed the inflammatory response and fibrosis development in skeletal muscle of infected Gal-8KO and C57BL/6J mice.