Helicobacter pylori infection reduces TAMs infiltration in a mouse model of AOM/DSS induced colitis-associated cancer

PLoS One. 2020 Nov 17;15(11):e0241840. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241840. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) increases the risk of colitis-associated cancer (CAC). Evidences suggest that Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is associated with a low risk of IBD and protects against experimental colitis in mouse models. However, the effect of H. pylori infection in CAC remains unclear. We previously reported that H. pylori infection increased M2 macrophages in dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced chronic colitis. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) play a pivotal role in colon cancer. Therefore, we established a H. pylori-infected CAC mouse model induced by azoxymethane and DSS to explore the effect of H. pylori infection on TAMs in CAC. Here, we demonstrated that H. pylori infection attenuated the development of CAC by decreasing tumor multiplicity, tumor size, tumor grade and colitis scores. Moreover, H. pylori infection reduced the infiltration of TAMs, particularly M2-like TAMs in CAC tumors, accompanied with the down-regulated pro-inflammatory and pro-tumorigenic factors TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-23 in tumors of CAC mice. Our study suggests that H. pylori infection can reduce TAMs infiltration and regulate cytokines expression in CAC.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Azoxymethane / toxicity
  • Flow Cytometry
  • Helicobacter Infections / complications*
  • Helicobacter Infections / metabolism
  • Helicobacter pylori / pathogenicity*
  • Immunohistochemistry
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / chemically induced
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / metabolism
  • Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / microbiology*
  • Interleukin-1beta / metabolism
  • Interleukin-23 / metabolism
  • Interleukin-6 / metabolism
  • Macrophages / metabolism
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / metabolism

Substances

  • Interleukin-1beta
  • Interleukin-23
  • Interleukin-6
  • Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
  • Azoxymethane

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality (7182165). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.