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* Institut Pasteur, Unité de Défense Innée et Inflammation, Paris, France;
Inserm, U874, Paris, France;
Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610;
Institut Pasteur, Unité de Recherche et d'Expertise Histotechnologie et Pathologie, Paris, France;
¶ University of Orleans and Centre National de la Recherehe Scientifique, Orleans, France; and
|| Microbiologia, Immunologia e Parasitologia, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Burkholderia cenocepacia is an opportunistic pathogen of major concern for cystic fibrosis patients as well as immunocompromised cancer patients and transplant recipients. The mechanisms by which B. cenocepacia triggers a rapid health deterioration of the susceptible host have yet to be characterized. TLR and their key signaling intermediate MyD88 play a central role in the detection of microbial molecular patterns and in the initiation of an effective immune response. We performed a study to better understand the role of TLR-MyD88 signaling in B. cenocepacia-induced pathogenesis in the immunocompromised host, using an experimental murine model. The time-course of several dynamic parameters, including animal survival, bacterial load, and secretion of critical inflammatory mediators, was compared in infected and immunosuppressed wild-type and MyD88–/– mice. Notably, when compared with wild-type mice, infected MyD88–/– animals displayed significantly reduced levels of inflammatory mediators (including KC, TNF-
, IL-6, MIP-2, and G-CSF) in blood and lung airspaces. Moreover, despite a higher transient bacterial load in the lungs, immunosuppressed mice deficient in MyD88 had an unexpected survival advantage. Finally, we showed that this B. cenocepacia-induced life-threatening infection of wild-type mice involved the proinflammatory cytokine TNF-
and could be prevented by corticosteroids. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that a MyD88-dependent pathway can critically contribute to a detrimental host inflammatory response that leads to fatal pneumonia.
The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
1 G.V. was financially supported by the "Société de Pneumologie de Langue Française" (SPLF).
2 G.M.deC.V. and V.B. contributed equally to this work.
3 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. M. Si-Tahar, Unité Défense Innée et Inflammation, Inserm U874, Institut Pasteur, 25 rue du Dr. Roux, Paris, France. E-mail address: sitahar{at}pasteur.fr
4 Abbreviations used in this paper: CF, cystic fibrosis; TSA, tryptic soy agar; BAL, bronchoalveolar lavage; p.i., post-infection; PMN, polymorphonuclear neutrophil; KC, keratinocyte-derived cytokine.
5 The online version of this article contains supplemental material.
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