Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Infection and Immunity, December 1998, p. 5677-5683, Vol. 66, No. 12
Laboratory of Host Defense and Germfree Life,
Research Institute for Disease Mechanism and Control, Nagoya
University School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan
Received 27 July 1998/Returned for modification 15 September
1998/Accepted 23 September 1998
Exogenous interleukin-15 (IL-15) stimulates intestinal
intraepithelial lymphocytes (i-IEL) from mice to proliferate and
produce gamma interferon (IFN-
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Interleukin-15 May Be Responsible for Early
Activation of Intestinal Intraepithelial Lymphocytes after Oral
Infection with Listeria monocytogenes in Rats
) in vitro. To determine whether
endogenous IL-15 is involved in activation of i-IEL during intestinal
infection, we examined IL-15 synthesis by intestinal epithelial cells
(i-EC) after infection with Listeria monocytogenes in rats.
In in vitro experiments, invasion of L. monocytogenes into
IEC-6 cells, a rat small intestine epithelial cell line, evidently
induced IL-15 mRNA expression coincident with nuclear factor
B
(NF-
B) activation, which is essential for IL-15 gene expression.
IL-15 synthesis was detected in rat i-EC on day 1 after an oral
inoculation of L. monocytogenes in vivo. The numbers of
T-cell receptor (TCR) 
+ T cells, NKR.P1+
cells, and CD3+ CD8+ 
cells in i-IEL were
significantly increased on day 1 after oral infection. The i-IEL from
infected rats produced larger amounts of IFN-
upon stimulation with
immobilized anti-TCR 
or anti-NKR.P1 monoclonal antibodies. These
results suggest that IL-15 produced by i-EC may stimulate significant
fractions of i-IEL to produce IFN-
at an early phase of oral
infection with L. monocytogenes.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratory of
Host Defense and Germfree Life, Research Institute for Disease
Mechanism and Control, Nagoya University School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466, Japan. Phone: 81-52-744-2446. Fax:
81-52-744-2449. E-mail:
yyoshika{at}tsuru.med.nagoya.u-ac.jp.
This article has been cited by other articles:
| J. Bacteriol. | J. Virol. | Eukaryot. Cell |
|---|
| Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. | Clin. Vaccine Immunol. | All ASM Journals |
|---|