Paper Details
- Wataru Watanabe (Department of Medical Life Sciences, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare / w_watal@phoenix.ac.jp)
1) Department of Medical Life Sciences, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare , 2) Department of Animal Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare , 3) Division of Risk Assessment, Biological Safety Research Center, National Institute of Health Sciences , 4) Department of Biochemistry, Graduate School of Clinical Pharmacy, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare
To evaluate the effects of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) on a host immune system, we assayed them using a murine model of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. MWCNT suspended in solution were intranasally administered to mice on days 1, 3, and 5 before RSV infection. On day 5 post-infection, the levels of representative inflammatory markers (interferon-γ, chemokines CCL3 and CCL5) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were significantly increased in RSV-infected mice due to MWCNT exposure compared to the control. A histopathological analysis confirmed the exacerbation of the pneumonia. However, significant histopathological changes were not observed in mock-infected mice in this study. Some alveolar macrophages engulfing the MWCNT aggregates were localized in the inflammatory cells in the lung tissues, but RSV-positive cells immunohistopathologically stained with an anti-RSV antibody were observed apart from those cells. Thus, intranasal treatment with MWCNT should affect the pulmonary immune response against RSV, exacerbating RSV infection in mice.