Effects of severe protein restriction in levels of parasitemia and in mortality of mice accutely infected with Trypanosoma cruzi

Abstract

Adult mice were submitted to different degrees o f protein restriction fo r five weeks (4.75, 9 .5,14.25 and 19% o Clinical and epidemiological observations suggest th at m aln u tritio n , m ainly protein deprivation, plays an im portant role in the development of infections which include protozoal d iseases2 8. A lthough m ost rep o rts show enhancement of infections in malnourished patients or experimental animals, some observations have shown increased resistance to malaria infection in rats that were submitted to protein restriction3 10. Moreover, while protein deprived mice infected with Leishmania mexicana showed arrest of lesion growth during the five initial weeks of infection, with subsequent development of non-healing lesions, normally nourished mice developed progressively healing lesions9.The effects of malnutrition on the evolution of Chagas' disease has not yet been evaluated. There are few reports showing enhancement of parasitemia and more severe lesions in the heart of infected rats submitted to diets with deficient amounts of thiamine, riboflavine, pantothenate or pyridoxine16 17 1819.

Simultaneous Autologous Transplantation of Cocultured Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Skeletal Myoblasts Improves Ventricular Function in a Murine Model of Chagas Disease

“…18 Briefly, Wistar rats weighing Ϸ200 grams (TECPAR, Curitiba-Pr-Brazil) were infected intraperitoneally with 15ϫ10 4 trypomastigotes, and infection was confirmed by Machado-Guerreiro reaction in all animals.…”

Protein deficiency alters CX3CL1 and endothelin‐1 in experimental Trypanosoma cruzi‐induced cardiomyopathy

“…Although cytokine‐related protein malnutrition has been reported (Gomes et al . ; Carlomagno et al . ), the role of chemokines and endothelin‐1 in protein nutritional deficiency in T. cruzi infection remains unclear.…”

Nutritional Status Driving Infection byTrypanosoma cruzi: Lessons from Experimental Animals

“…Regarding protein deficiency and T. cruzi infection, only the studies of Machado et al [42], Gomes et al [43], Carlomagno et al [44], and Cintra et al [45] (involving experimental models), and De Andrade and Zicker [24] (involving human) were found. Machado et al [42] studied the relation between the cardiac noradrenalin and the PEM in chronic experimental Chagas disease in rats (in this case, no immune interaction was evaluated).…”

“…The study of Gomes et al [43] was conducted to determine the effects of severe protein restriction (4.75, 9.5, 14.25 and 19% of protein in isocaloric diets with normal content of mineral and vitamins) on parasitemia and mortality of mice acutely infected with Y and CL strains of T. cruzi . Only severe protein restriction (4.75%) induced decrease in resistance to the infection with both Y and CL strains of T. cruzi , which resulted in higher parasitemia and mortality.…”