Abstract
Neosporosis is the major cause of abortion and reproductive failures in cattle, leading to significant economic losses. In this study, we evaluated the impact of Neospora caninum infection on oxidative stress (OS) markers and local cytokine mRNA expression at the placenta, as well as its effect on the progesterone (P4) serum levels and systemic cytokine profile in a pregnant mouse model. Infected pregnant mice (NC-1 group) showed increased percentages of fetal losses and IFN-γ serum levels, decreased serum progesterone, increased placental mRNA expression levels of both Th1-type (IFN-γ and TNF-α) and Th2-type (IL-4) cytokines, and inhibited expression of TGF-β1 (Treg) compare to control dams (CONTROL group). In addition, lipid peroxidation and ROS were increased, whereas the antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase (CAT) activities were modified in the placentae of infected mice compared to control mice. These findings demonstrate that multiple factors, including placental OS, are involved in fetal losses associated with N. caninum infection in mice, thus OS contribution to the placental physiopathology of neosporosis in other hosts must not be ruled out.
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Funding
This work was supported by grants to Dr. Valeria A. Sander (PICT 2016–0310) and Dr. Marina Clemente (PICT 2016–0621) from Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (Argentina). The study also received institutional support from the Universidad Nacional General de San Martín (UNSAM, Argentina).
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LFMM and VL contributed to the conception and design of the study, performed the experiments, and analyzed the data. MGC, ESL, and VAR performed part of the experiments. AL and AG maintain the mice and the parasite cultures, respectively. MC contributed with writing—review, editing, and funding acquisition, and VS participated in conceptualization, visualization, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition, and writing—review of the MS.
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All procedures requiring animals were performed in agreement with institutional guidelines and were approved by the Independent Ethics Committee for the Care and Use of Experimental Animals of National University of General San Martin (C.I.C.U.A.E., IIB-UNSAM).
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Morales, L.F.M., Lagorio, V., Corigliano, M.G. et al. Dysfunction, oxidative stress markers, and cytokine expression in the placentae of mice experimentally infected with Neospora caninum. Parasitol Res 122, 3257–3263 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-023-07995-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-023-07995-0