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Cigarette smoking alters intestinal barrier function and Peyer's Patch composition

Boekbijdrage - Boekabstract Conferentiebijdrage

Smokers have a two-fold increased risk to develop CrohnU+2019s disease (CD). However, little is known about the mechanisms through which smoking affects CD pathogenesis. Interestingly, the PeyerU+2019s patches in the terminal ileum are the sites where the first CD lesions develop. To investigate whether smoke exposure causes alterations in PeyerU+2019s patches, we studied C57BL/6 mice after exposure to air or cigarette smoke for 24 weeks. First, barrier function of the follicle-associated epithelium overlying PeyerU+2019s patches was evaluated. We demonstrate that chronic smoke exposure is associated with increased apoptosis in the follicle-associated epithelium. Furthermore, immune cell numbers and differentiation along with chemokine expression were determined in the ileal PeyerU+2019s patches. We observed significant increases in total dendritic cells (DC), CD4+ T-cells (including regulatory T-cells) and CD8+ T-cells after smoke exposure compared with air-exposed animals. The CD11b+ DC subset almost doubled. Interestingly, these changes were accompanied by an up-regulated mRNA expression of the chemokines CCL9 and CCL20, which are known to attract CD11b+ DC towards the subepithelial dome of PeyerU+2019s patches. Our results demonstrate that cigarette smoke exposure induces apoptosis in follicle-associated epithelium and is associated with immune cell accumulation in PeyerU+2019s patches, changes which can predispose to the development of CD.
Boek: Mucosal Immunology, 15th International congress, Abstracts
Aantal pagina's: 1
Jaar van publicatie:2011