Brucella abortus induces apoptosis of human T lymphocytes |
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Authors: | Velásquez Lis N Delpino M Victoria Ibañez Andrés E Coria Lorena M Miraglia M Cruz Scian Romina Cassataro Juliana Giambartolomei Guillermo H Barrionuevo Paula |
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Institution: | Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral, CONICET, Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. |
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Abstract: | Immune evasion is essential for Brucella abortus to survive in the face of robust adaptive CD4+ T cell response. We have previously demonstrated that B. abortus can indirectly inhibit CD4+ T cells by down-regulating MHC-II expression and antigen presentation on macrophages. However, whether B. abortus is able to directly interfere with T lymphocytes is not known. We report here that B. abortus induces apoptosis of human T lymphocytes, even though invasion of T lymphocytes was low and non-replicative. The ability of heat-killed B. abortus to reproduce the same phenomenon suggested that there was a bacterial structural component involved. We demonstrated that a prototypical B. abortus outer membrane lipoprotein (l-Omp19), but not its unlipidated form, induced T lymphocyte apoptosis. Moreover, a synthetic lipohexapeptide that mimics the structure of the protein lipid moiety also induced an increase in T lymphocyte cell death, indicating that the structural component implicated in the phenomenon could be any B. abortus lipoprotein. B. abortus-induced T lymphocyte apoptosis was dependent on the secretion of TNF-α since pre-incubation of T lymphocytes with anti-TNF-α mAb inhibited the apoptosis of the cells. Overall, these results represent a new mechanism whereby B. abortus by directly inhibiting T cell-mediated responses may evade adaptive immune responses. |
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