Affiliations: Research and Development Department, Abbott
Laboratories, 18004 Granada, Spain | Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Abstract: We studied the influence of dietary gangliosides on the number of
spontaneous cytokine-secreting cells from two intestinal lymphocyte
populations: lamina propria lymphocytes and Peyer's patches lymphocytes in
Balb/c mice for 28 days after weaning. Weanling mice were separated into two
groups, designated as Control and BG. The Control group was fed with a
semipurified diet without gangliosides and the BG group was fed with the
semipurified diet supplemented with 47 mg/kg of a mixture of bovine brain
gangliosides. Intestinal lymphocytes were isolated from mice killed at 3, 7, 14
and 28 days after weaning, and the percentages of spontaneous Th1 as well as
Th2 cytokine-secreting lymphocytes were determined using the ELISPOT assay. The
BG group animals showed an earlier development in the number of
cytokine-secreting cells, which appeared one week later in Control animals. In
addition, mice fed with the ganglioside-supplemented diet showed a
significantly higher number of Th1 and Th2 cytokine-secreting lymphocytes than
Control mice in lamina propria and Peyer's patches lymphocytes at the end of
the experimental period (28 days). Our results suggest that dietary
gangliosides influence the maturation process of the intestinal immune system
that take place during weaning.
