The Role of Apoptosis and Autophagy in Bovine Abortions Associated with Brucella Spp

Abstract

This study is aimed to evaluate the relationship between the severity of apoptotic and autophagic cell death based on the distribution of Brucella spp. antigens in the lung, liver, kidney, spleen, brain, heart, skeletal muscle, mesenteric lymph node, and thymus tissue from bovine fetuses aborted due to natural infection with Brucella spp. The distribution of Brucella spp. antigens was immunohistochemically examined in the tissues of 16 aborted fetuses from cattle diagnosed with Brucella spp. infection by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In addition, immunostaining of primary antibodies for cleaved caspase 3 was performed to detect apoptosis, and immunostaining of Microtubule Associated Protein 1 Light Chain 3 Beta (LC3B) was used to detect autophagy in the Brucella spp.-related abortions. Analysis of cellular death revealed strong immunopositivity in the lung, spleen, kidney, and thymus, moderate immunopositivity in the liver, mesenterial lymph nodes, and heart muscle and slight immunopositivity in the brain and skeletal muscle by staining of Brucellaspp. antigens. According to the immunohistochemical results, the immunopositivity of cleaved caspase 3 and LC3B was extremely high in the lung, thymus, spleen, kidney, and liver tissues. The immunostaining of cleaved caspase 3 in the lung, thymus, and kidney tissues was severe compared to that of LC3B. In the liver, spleen, and mesenterial lymph nodes, the immunopositivity of LC3B was higher than that of cleaved caspase 3. Bacterial antigens were highly evident in the lung, spleen, kidney, and thymus tissues of Brucella spp.-related bovine abortions, and both apoptosis and autophagy played a role in cellular death.

Brucella neotomae Recapitulates Attributes of Zoonotic Human Disease in a Murine Infection Model

“…Interestingly, B. neotomae ⌬virB4 infection showed both quantitative and qualitative attenuation, the latter, as observed during BLI studies, suggesting that T4SS contributes to colonization of the reticuloendothelial system (lymph nodes, spleen, and liver). We did not sample lymph nodes for CFU analysis; however, the absence of ⌬virB4 CFU isolated from the thymus, a site of long-term Brucella colonization in animals where examined (34,41,42), at any time point also supports a dissemination defect. This qualitative phenotype is reminiscent of the previously observed VirB-dependent colonization of mesenteric lymph nodes, spleen, and liver after gastrointestinal infection of BALB/c mice with B. melitensis 16 M (39) and the VirB-dependent reticuloendothelial system colonization of C57BL/6 mice by B. melitensis after intraperitoneal infection (40).…”

Diagnosis of Q Fever and Brucellosis in Aborted Ovine Fetuses by Microbiological, Pathological and Immunohistochemical Methods

“…Also, due to frequently occurring cross-reactions, serologic tests may yield false-negative results. Consequently, in cases of infected abortus, the determination of Brucella and Coxiella antigens with the highly sensitive and specifi c immunohistochemical methods is preferred [10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

A Microarray-Based Analysis of Differentially Expressed Genes in Intracellular Brucella abortus 544 within Mdbk Cells

“…The ATPbinding cassette (ABC) transporters use a variety of substrates such as amino acids, sugars, inorganic ions, polysaccharides, peptides and proteins [34] and several ABC transporters have been associated to the full virulence and survival of Brucella in vitro and in vivo, hence the increase in the transcription of genes that encode for these proteins could help in the virulence and survival of Brucella. MFS transporter was also observed to increase which functions as a secondary carrier that transports small solutes in response to chemiosmotic ion gradients and its upregulation may be important for the adaptation of Brucella in the ionic intracellular environment [12]. Furthermore, several transcripts for hypothetical protein were observed to increase suggesting their important roles in the survival of B. abortus in epithelial host cells, thus impose special attention to be studied further.…”

“…A previous study investigated the relationship between the severity of apoptotic and autophagic cell death based on the distribution of Brucella antigens in the different tissues of aborted bovine fetuses due to natural infection and showed that the bacterial antigens were highly evident in the kidneys [11]. Interestingly, involvement of the renal parenchyma in the acute phase of brucellosis is very rare but generally manifested as acute interstitial nephritis, chronic interstitial nephritis or glomerulonephritis [12]. Although the involvement of kidney is not common, it has been reported that brucellosis is about ten times more prevalent in patients with renal failure and concluded that the disease can cause nephropathy [13].…”