Priorinfection protects againstinduced hepatic fibrosis.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Schistosomiasis affects approximately 250 million people worldwide, with 200,000 deaths annually. It has been documented that the granulomatous response to() oviposition is the root cause of progressive liver fibrosis in chronic infection, in 20% of the patients, and can lead to liver cirrhosis and/or liver cancer. The influence of helminths coinfection on schistosomiasis-induced liver pathological alterations remains poorly understood. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the effect of() infection on-induced hepatic fibrosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty adult male Balb-c mice were divided into three groups. Group 1 was left uninfected; group 2 was infected withcercariae and group 3 was orally infected withlarvae, then 28 days later, this group was infected withcercariae. All groups were sacrificed at the end of the 8week post infection withthe effect of pre-infection withoninduced liver fibrosis was evaluated parasitologically (worm burden and egg count in tissues), biochemically (levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase), histopathologically (H&E and MT staining, and immunohistochemical staining for the expression of α-SMA, IL-6, IL-1β, IL-17, IL-23, TNF-α, and TGF-β). RESULTS: The results in the present study demonstrated marked protective effect ofagainstinduced liver pathology. We demonstrated that pre-infection withcaused marked reduction in the number ofadult worms (3.17 ± 0.98 vs. 18 ± 2.16,= 0.114) and egg count in both the intestine (207.2 ± 64.3 vs. 8,619.43 ± 727.52,= 0.009) and liver tissues (279 ± 87.2 vs. 7,916.86 ± 771.34;= 0.014). Consistently, we found significant reductions in both number (3.4 ± 1.1 vs. 11.8.3 ± 1.22;= 0.007) and size (84 ± 11 vs. 294.3 ± 16.22;= 0.001) of the hepatic granulomas in mice pre-infected withlarvae compared to those infected with only. Furthermore, pre- infection withmarkedly reduced- induced hepatic fibrosis, as evidenced by decreased collagen deposition, low expression of α-SMA, and significantly reduced levels of IL-17, IL-1B, IL-6, TGF-B, IL-23, and TNF-α compared to mice infected withonly. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that pre-infection witheffectively protected mice from severe schistosomiasis and liver fibrosis. We believe that our findings support the potential utility of helminths for the preventing and ameliorating severe pathological alterations induced by schistosomiasis.