Evidences for vagus nerve in maintenance of immune balance and transmission of immune information from gut to brain in STM-infected rats

作者：Xi Wang · 发表于：World Journal of Gastroenterology · 年份：2002 · DOI：10.3748/wjg.v8.i3.540 · 被引用次数：142 · 研究领域：Vagus Nerve Stimulation Research、Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration Mechanisms、Memory and Neural Mechanisms

AIM: To determine whether Salmonella Typhimurium (STM)in gastrointestinal tract can induce the functional activation of brain, whether the vagus nerve involves in signaling immune information from gastrointestinal tract to brain and how it influences the immune function under natural infection condition. METHODS: Animal model of gastrointestinal tract infection in the rat was established by an intubation of Salmonella Typhimurium (STM) into stomach to mimic the condition of natural bacteria infection. Subdiagphragmatic vagotomy was performed in some of the animals 28 days before infection. The changes of Fos expression visualized with immunohistochemistry technique in hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and superaoptic nucleus (SON) were counted. Meanwhile, the percentage and the Mean Intensities of Fluorescent (MIFs) of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in peripheral blood were measured by using flow cytometry (FCM), and the pathological changes in ileum and mesenteric lymph node were observed in HE stained sections. RESULTS: In bacteria-stimulated groups, inflammatory pathological changes were seen in ileum and mesenteric lymph node. The percentages of CD4+ T cells in peripheral blood were decreased from 42%+/-4.5% to 34%+/-4.9% (P<0.05) and MIFs of CD8+ T cells were also decreased from 2.9+/-0.39 to 2.1+/-0.36 (P<0.05) with STM stimulation. All of them proved that our STM-infection model was reliable. Fos immunoreactive (Fos-ir) cells in PVN and SON increased significantly with...