Trichinella spiralis infection changes immune response in mice performed abdominal heterotopic cardiac transplantation and prolongs cardiac allograft survival time

Allograft rejection has been an obstacle for long-term survival of patients for many years. Current strategies for transplant rejection are not as optimal as we expected, especially for long-term treatments. Trichinella spiralis, a nematode parasitized in mammalian muscle and as an invader, maintains harmonious with host in the long term by evading host immune attack. To determine whether T. spiralis infection impacts on allograft rejection, we performed mice cardiac allograft transplantation model by using BALB/c (H-2b) mice as donors and C57BL/6 (H-2b) mice orally infected with 300 muscle larvae for 28 days as recipients. Graft survival was monitored by daily palpation of the abdomen; histologic change was observed by H&E stain; and CD4+, CD8+, CD4+IFN-γ+, and CD4+IL-17+ T cells and regulatory T cells were examined with the use of flow cytometry. Serum cytokine levels were measured by Luminex. Finally, we found that mean survival time of cardiac allografts in T. spiralis group was 23.40 ± 1.99 days, while the vehicle control group was 10.60 ± 0.75 days. Furthermore, we observed alleviated histological changes in the heart allograft, decreased corresponding CD8+ T cells, suppressed Th1 and Th17 responses, and increased regulatory T cell frequency in a murine cardiac transplantation model at day 7 post-transplantation in experimental group. These data suggest that T. spiralis infection resulted in prolonged allograft survival following murine cardiac transplantation, with suppressed Th1/Th17 responses and augmented regulatory T cells.