ABSTRACT
IL-12 plays an important role in the treatment of many infectious diseases by being administered intravenously or intramuscularly. However, intravenous or intramuscular administration is difficult and inconvenient and may cause side effects. The aim of this study is to develop a novel oral delivery system for IL-12 using genetically engineered Bifidobacterium longum as the carrier and further investigate the efficacy of IL-12-expressed B. longum on the coxsackie virus B3 (CVB3)-induced myocarditis in mice. A mIL-12 gene expression vector pBBADs-IL-12 for B. longum was constructed and transformed into Bifidobacterium. Subsequently, the expression of mIL-12 in the engineered B. longum was identified in vitro by western blot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) after l-arabinose induction. Moreover, our data indicated that oral administration of IL-12-expressed B. longum for two weeks after CVB3 infection in the Balb/c mice could downregulate the severity of virus-induced myocarditis, markedly reduce the virus titers in the heart and induce a Th1 pattern in the spleen and heart compared with the controls. In conclusion, a novel oral delivery system of Bifidobacterium for murine IL-12 has been successfully established. Oral administration of mIL-12-transformed B. longum may play a therapeutic role in the treatment of CVB3-induced myocarditis in the mice.
Subject(s)
Bifidobacterium/genetics , Coxsackievirus Infections/drug therapy , Drug Carriers/administration & dosage , Interleukin-12/administration & dosage , Myocarditis/drug therapy , Administration, Oral , Animals , Coxsackievirus Infections/complications , Coxsackievirus Infections/immunology , Coxsackievirus Infections/pathology , Feces/chemistry , Interferon-gamma/genetics , Interferon-gamma/immunology , Interleukin-12/blood , Interleukin-12/genetics , Leukocytes, Mononuclear , Male , Mice , Mice, Inbred BALB C , Myocarditis/etiology , Myocarditis/immunology , Myocarditis/pathology , RNA, Messenger/immunology , Recombinant Proteins/administration & dosage , Recombinant Proteins/blood , Recombinant Proteins/genetics , Transformation, Bacterial , Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha/genetics , Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha/immunologyABSTRACT
Our objective was to develop an effective method to prevent the fall in platelet count for patients with anticoagulant-dependent (AD) pseudothrombocytopenia, a spurious phenomenon due to anticoagulant-induced aggregation of platelets. We report a case of insidious multianticoagulant-dependent pseudothrombocytopenia in which AD pseudothrombocytopenia may be caused by 4 anticoagulants, eg, EDTA, sodium citrate, heparin, and sodium fluoride (NaF). Multianticoagulant-dependent pseudothrombocytopenia was confirmed by finding clumped platelets on microscopic evaluation in 4 anticoagulated blood samples. With this case, we tried a variety of reagents, including aminoglycosides, eg, gentamicin and amikacin, vitamin B(6), and aminophylline to inhibit pseudothrombocytopenia. Except for amikacin, all reagents failed to prevent pseudothrombocytopenia. Microscopic examination of K(2)-EDTA-, heparin-, sodium citrate-, and NaF-anticoagulated blood samples showed massive platelet clumping, but no aggregate was seen in the anticoagulated blood with amikacin. When amikacin was added within 1 hour after blood sample withdrawal, platelet, WBC, and RBC counts and hemoglobin level, mean corpuscular volume, and mean platelet volume remained unchanged for up to 4 hours at room temperature. These findings suggest that amikacin could inhibit and dissociate pseudo platelet aggregation in multianticoagulant-dependent pseudothrombocytopenia and EDTA-induced pseudothrombocytopenia.
