Background: Leptospirosis is a widespread zoonosis caused by pathogenic prokaryotic microbes of the genus
Leptospira . Although there are several
reports in the
literature ,
host-pathogen interaction is still poorly understood. The
role of
chemokine expression is important on the
chemotaxis , activation and
regulation of immune
cells . Recent studies have shown that their expression profiles
play an important
role on the severity of
leptospirosis outcome. We evaluated the
phagocytosis of
Leptospira by spleens
cells from C3H/HeJ, C3H/HePas and BALB/c
mouse strains , respectively susceptible, intermediate and resistant to
leptospirosis , and by RAW 264.7
macrophages . Besides, we evaluated the effects of CCL2
treatment on the
phagocytosis . The
cells were incubated with or without
CCL2 chemokine , and infected with virulent L. interrogans sv Copenhageni.
Cells and
culture supernatants were collected for subsequent
analysis .
Results: The number of leptospires was higher in BALB/c
cells , CCL2 pre-treated or only infected groups, when compared to C3H/HeJ and C3H/HePas
cells . Indeed, CCL2 activation did not interfere in the
phagocytosis of
Leptospira . Expression of
chemokines CXCL5 and CCL8 levels were significantly inhibited in infected BALB/c
cells when compared to the non-infected control.
Conclusions: Higher
ability to
phagocytosis and early modulation of some
chemokines correlated with the resistance to
leptospirosis disease . Exposure to CCL2 did not interfere on
phagocytosis of
Leptospira in our experimental conditions, but acted in the modulation of
chemokines expression during
Leptospira infection .