caninum. On the other hand, a non exacerbated Th1 immune response profile seems to be more appropriate

JQ1 to control neosporosis, since our previous study showed that vaccination with NcESA alone or combined with ODN-CpG adjuvant resulted in a strong cellular immune response associated with high levels of IFN-γ and inflammation, rendering mice more susceptible to parasite challenge [29]. Also, immunization of BALB/c mice with soluble N. caninum tachyzoite antigens entrapped in nonionic surfactant vesicles or administered with Freund’s adjuvant had clinical neurological disease and increased numbers of brain lesions compared to groups of mice this website inoculated with adjuvants alone or non-immunized controls, following virulent parasite challenge [41]. These findings were associated with increased IL-4 secretion and IL-4/IFN-γ ratio in vitro as well as increased IgG1/IgG2a ratio in vivo, showing that the induction of a type 2 immune response is not protective to neosporosis [41]. Although the best way to infer about a Th1 or Th2 biased immune response should be the IFN-γ/IL-4 ratio determination,

we have demonstrated in our previous study [29] that IL-4 was consistently undetectable in supernatants from C57BL/6 mouse spleen cell cultures, even using high sensitivity commercially available kits with a limit of detection of 15 pg/ml. Thus, the IFN-gamma/IL-10 ratio was adopted in an attempt to verify the balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. As we observed that the highest IFN-gamma/IL-10 ratio was found for the NLA + ArtinM group Thymidine kinase followed by the ArtinM group in relation to the remaining groups, these data could indicate a profile of Th1-biased pro-inflammatory

immune response, supporting the role of ArtinM as a strong inducer of Th1-type immune responses, as demonstrated in other infection models [15] and [16]. In the present study, a protective pattern of Th1-biased pro-inflammatory immune response can have influenced the survival of the animals after parasite challenge, given that mice immunized with NLA + ArtinM presented the greatest survival and the lowest brain parasite load, indicating that increased IgG2a levels before challenge, higher IgG2a/IgG1 ratio after challenge and higher IFN-γ/IL-10 ratio after immunization can be associated with protection against infection. However, the mouse groups that received ArtinM with or without antigen presented the highest morbidity scores and weight changes from baseline. It is noteworthy that these parameters were more remarkable during the acute phase of infection (from 7 to 12 days after challenge), being the higher rates of body weight losses coincident with the peak of morbidity scores.