Xth ICT, August 2000

Mucosal responses to infection with Trichinella spiralis in mice

¹ School of Life and Environmental Sciences and
² School of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.

^* D. Wakelin. Tel.: (115) 9513232 - Fax : (115) 9513252. E-mail : D.Wakelin@nottingham.ac.uk

Abstract

Infections with T. spiralis in mice elicit strong inflammatory responses. The nature and control of these responses, and their relationship to the process of worm expulsion, have been debated for many years. Many components of inflammation are, like worm expulsion, T cell-dependent, but some are not. The paper describes novel observations on Paneth cell responses to infection in immunologically normal mice and in a variety of T cell-deficient mice. Responses occurred normally in nu/nu and scid/scid mice but not in β/δ knock out mice incapable of generating cells with functional TCR. However all of these mice failed to expel worms in the pattern seen in immunologically normal controls. These data are incorporated into a discussion of the causal relevance of intestinal inflammatory changes to the process of worm expulsion.