Experimental allergic airway inflammation impacts gut homeostasis in mice

Carolina Martins Nascimento; Mateus Campos Casaro; Evelyn Roxana Perez; Willian Rodrigues Ribeiro; Marcia Pinto Alves Mayer; Karin Hitomi Ishikawa; Adriana Lino-Dos-Santos-Franco; Joice Naiara Bertaglia Pereira; Caroline Marcantonio Ferreira

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16429

Experimental allergic airway inflammation impacts gut homeostasis in mice

Heliyon. 2023 Jun 3;9(6):e16429. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16429. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Authors

Carolina Martins Nascimento¹, Mateus Campos Casaro¹, Evelyn Roxana Perez¹, Willian Rodrigues Ribeiro¹, Marcia Pinto Alves Mayer², Karin Hitomi Ishikawa², Adriana Lino-Dos-Santos-Franco³, Joice Naiara Bertaglia Pereira⁴, Caroline Marcantonio Ferreira¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Environmental, Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Department of Pharmaceutics Sciences, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Diadema, SP, Brazil.
² Department of Microbiology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
³ Department of Biophotonics Applied to Health Sciences, University Nove de Julho (UNINOVE), São Paulo, Brazil.
⁴ Strategic Laboratory of Molecular Diagnosis, Butantan Institute, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.

Abstract

Background: /Aims: Epidemiological data show that there is an important relationship between respiratory and intestinal diseases. To improve our understanding on the interconnectedness between the lung and intestinal mucosa and the overlap between respiratory and intestinal diseases, our aim was to investigate the influence of ovalbumin (OVA)-induced allergic airway inflammation on gut homeostasis.

Methods: A/J mice were sensitized and challenged with OVA. The animals were euthanized 24 h after the last challenge, lung inflammation was determined by evaluating cells in Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, serum anti-OVA IgG titers and colon morphology, inflammation and integrity of the intestinal mucosa were investigated. IL-4 and IL-13 levels and myeloperoxidase activity were determined in the colon samples. The expression of genes involved in inflammation and mucin production at the gut mucosa was also evaluated.

Results: OVA challenge resulted not only in lung inflammation but also in macroscopic alterations in the gut such as colon shortening, increased myeloperoxidase activity and loss of integrity in the colonic mucosal. Neutral mucin intensity was lower in the OVA group, which was followed by down-regulation of transcription of ATOH1 and up-regulation of TJP1 and MUC2. In addition, the OVA group had higher levels of IL-13 and IL-4 in the colon. Ova-specific IgG1 and OVA-specific IgG2a titers were higher in the serum of the OVA group than in controls.

Conclusions: Our data using the OVA experimental model suggested that challenges in the respiratory system may result not only in allergic airway inflammation but also in the loss of gut homeostasis.

Keywords: Allergic inflammation; Asthma; Gut and mucosa; Lung.