Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Infection and Immunity logoLink to Infection and Immunity
. 1987 Sep;55(9):2132–2136. doi: 10.1128/iai.55.9.2132-2136.1987

Use of bronchoalveolar lavage to compare local pulmonary immunity with the systemic immune response of Toxocara canis-infected mice.

S G Kayes, R E Jones, P E Omholt
PMCID: PMC260668  PMID: 2887514

Abstract

Following infection of mice with larvae of the canine roundworm Toxocara canis, there is a persistent pneumonitis. Heretofore, nothing was known about the immunologic potential of the cells that constitute this inflammatory exudate. By performing bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), enough inflammatory cells were obtained to compare the local pulmonary immune response to T. canis infection with the systemic immune response as reflected in the peripheral blood and spleen cells of the same mice. Groups of C57BL/6J female mice were given 100 infective ova and BAL, peripheral blood, and spleen cells collected on days 8, 11, 14, and 17 postinfection. The percentage of eosinophils in the BAL averaged about 80% and was four to five times as great as that in the peripheral blood at all times assayed. Use of concanavalin A (ConA)-elicited lymphocyte blastogenesis to evaluate T-lymphocyte activity revealed that BAL T-cell activity was low on day 8 and peaked on day 11. When the B-cell mitogen lipopolysaccharide was used in the assay, there appeared to be far less BAL cell reactivity compared with BAL T-cell activity. Both B- and T-cell responses of the BAL cells were only a fraction of the responses seen concurrently in spleen cells. Use of Toxocara exoantigens in the blastogenesis assay revealed that Toxocara exoantigens could elicit between 20 and 95% of the ConA response in BAL cells, while in spleen cells Toxocara exoantigens could only elicit 1 to 5% of the ConA response. These results suggest that BAL is a useful method for recovering local inflammatory cells that possess detectable immunologic activity. In the case of pulmonary toxocariasis, eosinophils account for the majority of the cells that are present, with most of the remaining cells being T. canis antigen-specific T lymphocytes.

Full text

PDF
2132

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Bergmann K. C., Waldman R. H., Stone J. Lymphocyte subpopulations in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of Balb/c-mice defined by monoclonal antibodies. Allerg Immunol (Leipz) 1983;29(4):204–208. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bowman D. D., Mika-Grieve M., Grieve R. B. Circulating excretory-secretory antigen levels and specific antibody responses in mice infected with Toxocara canis. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1987 Jan;36(1):75–82. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.1987.36.75. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Capron M., Bazin H., Joseph M., Capron A. Evidence for IgE-dependent cytotoxicity by rat eosinophils. J Immunol. 1981 May;126(5):1764–1768. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Glickman L. T., Schantz P. M. Epidemiology and pathogenesis of zoonotic toxocariasis. Epidemiol Rev. 1981;3:230–250. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.epirev.a036235. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Kayes S. G., Oaks J. A. Effect of inoculum size and length of infection on the distribution of Toxocara canis larvae in the mouse. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1976 Jul;25(4):573–580. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.1976.25.573. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Kayes S. G., Omholt P. E., Grieve R. B. Immune responses of CBA/J mice to graded infections with Toxocara canis. Infect Immun. 1985 Jun;48(3):697–703. doi: 10.1128/iai.48.3.697-703.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Kayes S. G. Spleen cell responses in experimental murine toxocariasis. J Parasitol. 1984 Aug;70(4):522–529. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Libich J., Franek J., Tucková L. Modification of Oudin's method of single immunodiffusion in agar gel for detection of IgA in bronchoalveolar lavage of white mice. Folia Microbiol (Praha) 1983;28(5):430–434. doi: 10.1007/BF02879495. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Liu M. C., Ishizaka K., Plaut M. T lymphocyte responses of murine lung: immunization with alloantigen induces accumulation of cytotoxic and other T lymphocytes in the lung. J Immunol. 1982 Dec;129(6):2653–2661. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Reynolds H. Y., Fulmer J. D., Kazmierowski J. A., Roberts W. C., Frank M. M., Crystal R. G. Analysis of cellular and protein content of broncho-alveolar lavage fluid from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis. J Clin Invest. 1977 Jan;59(1):165–175. doi: 10.1172/JCI108615. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Savigny D. H. In vitro maintenance of Toxocara canis larvae and a simple method for the production of Toxocara ES antigen for use in serodiagnostic tests for visceral larva migrans. J Parasitol. 1975 Aug;61(4):781–782. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Schuyler M. R., Thigpen T. P., Salvaggio J. E. Local pulmonary immunity in pigeon breeder's disease. A case study. Ann Intern Med. 1978 Mar;88(3):355–358. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-88-3-355. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Sunderrajan E. V., McKenzie W. N., Lieske T. R., Kavanaugh J. L., Braun S. R., Walker S. E. Pulmonary inflammation in autoimmune MRL/Mp-lpr/lpr mice. Histopathology and bronchoalveolar lavage evaluation. Am J Pathol. 1986 Aug;124(2):353–362. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Infection and Immunity are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES