Laboratorio de Inmunología Molecular, Unidad de Investigación Química Computacional, Síntesis y Farmacología de Moléculas de Interés Biológico, Facultad de Estudios Superiores Zaragoza, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México 09230, Mexico.
Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas, Unidad de Posgrado, Circuito de Posgrados, Ciudad Universitaria, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México 04510, Mexico.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Aug 8;24(16):12549. doi: 10.3390/ijms241612549.
Malaria is the most lethal parasitic disease worldwide; the severity of symptoms and mortality are higher in men than in women, exhibiting an evident sexual dimorphism in the immune response; therefore, the contribution of 17β-estradiol and testosterone to this phenomenon has been studied. Both hormones differentially affect several aspects of innate and adaptive immunity. Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is the precursor of both hormones and is the sexual steroid in higher concentrations in humans, with immunomodulatory properties in different parasitic diseases; however, the involvement of DHEA in this sexual dimorphism has not been studied. In the case of malaria, the only information is that higher levels of DHEA are associated with reduced parasitemia. Therefore, this work aims to analyze the DHEA contribution to the sexual dimorphism of the immune response in malaria. We assessed the effect of modifying the concentration of DHEA on parasitemia, the number of immune cells in the spleen, cytokines, and antibody levels in plasma of CBA/Ca mice infected with ANKA ( ANKA). DHEA differentially affected the immune response in males and females: it decreased IFN-γ, IL-2 and IL-4 concentrations only in females, whereas in gonadectomized males, it increased IgG2a and IgG3 antibodies. The results presented here show that DHEA modulates the immune response against differently in each sex, which helps to explain the sexual dimorphism present in malaria.
疟疾是全球最致命的寄生虫病;男性的症状严重程度和死亡率高于女性,其免疫反应表现出明显的性别二态性;因此,已经研究了 17β-雌二醇和睾酮对此现象的贡献。这两种激素对先天免疫和适应性免疫的几个方面都有不同的影响。脱氢表雄酮(DHEA)是这两种激素的前体,是人类中浓度较高的性激素,具有不同寄生虫病的免疫调节特性;然而,DHEA 在此性别二态性中的参与尚未得到研究。在疟疾的情况下,唯一的信息是 DHEA 水平较高与寄生虫减少有关。因此,这项工作旨在分析 DHEA 对疟疾免疫反应性别二态性的贡献。我们评估了改变 DHEA 浓度对 CBA/Ca 小鼠感染 ANKA(ANKA)后寄生虫血症、脾脏中免疫细胞数量、细胞因子和血浆中抗体水平的影响。DHEA 对男性和女性的免疫反应有不同的影响:它仅在女性中降低 IFN-γ、IL-2 和 IL-4 的浓度,而在去势雄性中,它增加 IgG2a 和 IgG3 抗体。这里呈现的结果表明,DHEA 以不同的方式调节对 的免疫反应,这有助于解释疟疾中存在的性别二态性。