| Autor: |
Fernandes JCR; Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.; Instituto de Medicina Tropical, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil., Aoki JI; Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil., Maia Acuña S; Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil., Zampieri RA; Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil., Markus RP; Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil., Floeter-Winter LM; Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil., Muxel SM; Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. |
| Abstrakt: |
Leishmaniases are neglected diseases that cause a large spectrum of clinical manifestations, from cutaneous to visceral lesions. The initial steps of the inflammatory response involve the phagocytosis of Leishmania and the parasite replication inside the macrophage phagolysosome. Melatonin, the darkness-signaling hormone, is involved in modulation of macrophage activation during infectious diseases, controlling the inflammatory response against parasites. In this work, we showed that exogenous melatonin treatment of BALB/c macrophages reduced Leishmania amazonensis infection and modulated host microRNA (miRNA) expression profile, as well as cytokine production such as IL-6, MCP-1/CCL2, and, RANTES/CCL9. The role of one of the regulated miRNA (miR-294-3p) in L. amazonensis BALB/c infection was confirmed with miRNA inhibition assays, which led to increased expression levels of Tnf and Mcp- 1/ Ccl2 and diminished infectivity. Additionally, melatonin treatment or miR-30e-5p and miR-302d-3p inhibition increased nitric oxide synthase 2 ( Nos2 ) mRNA expression levels and nitric oxide (NO) production, altering the macrophage activation state and reducing infection. Altogether, these data demonstrated the impact of melatonin treatment on the miRNA profile of BALB/c macrophage infected with L. amazonensis defining the infection outcome. |
