Effects of Moderate Malnutrition during Pregnancy on Neonatal Immunity to Malaria 2369

Description High mortality rates due to malnutrition and malaria are reported in children under five years. Surprisingly, there is limited knowledge on neonatal immunity to the Plasmodium infection in relation to malnutrition, in part due to the lack of a reliable neonatal animal model to study the disease in children. By utilizing a newly developed young rodent model in our lab, we investigated the nature of lymphocyte activation comparing moderate malnourished to well-nourished 13 days old young mice (pups). We infected the pups with 1x105 Plasmodium chabaudi parasites and determined innate NK cells and adaptive CD4 T and B lymphocytes. We observed higher proportions of NK cells, but lower activation of CD4+ T cells in the malnourished mice when compared to the well-nourished pups as indicated by the expression of CD44 and CD62L. Surprisingly, there were more proportions of T (CXCR5+), B cells (CD19+ GL7+) and MHC-II ++ subsets in the malnourished pups than the well-nourished. We next determined cytokine secretion and Tbet expression by the Effector CD4+ T cells. Apart from IL-2, which was high in the well-nourished pups, there was no significant difference in the proportions of protective cytokine, IFNγ in both groups. Effector CD4+ T cells from both groups of pups expressed equal proportions of the Tbet transcription factor. Taken together, this data suggest that malnourished pup CD4 T cells may require more IL-2 to expand into functional Effector cells during Plasmodium infection.