Grace Lombardo
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Wendy Fonseca Aguilar
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Pathology Department / Medicine
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 7 (4:40pm – 5:30pm)
Authors:
Abstract
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is one of the most common illnesses children encounter worldwide, and severe cases cause inflammation, mucus overproduction, and airway reconstruction. Several studies have linked early-life RSV (EL-RSV) infection with a higher predisposition to allergies and asthma later in life because of long-term alterations to the lungs and immune system, but there is currently no vaccine for RSV. This problem may be addressed by understanding the mechanisms involved in RSV immunopathology to ultimately identify specific inflammatory cytokines and processes that may be targeted for developing a treatment. Macrophages, in particular, have been shown to switch to a pro-inflammatory phenotype long-term following EL-RSV infection. Studying macrophages and the processes they are involved with will help to identify therapeutic targets to prevent the development of long-term pro-inflammatory changes in the pulmonary immune environment. To investigate this problem, a neonatal Balb/c mouse was intranasally infected at 6-7 days old with RSV, and another uninfected neonatal Balb/c mouse was used as a control. Bone marrow progenitors were harvested from the bone marrow of the mice at 4 weeks post-infection. Bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDM) were differentiated and restimulated with recombinant cytokines and TLR agonists in vitro. Specific RNA and proteins were isolated and analyzed using qPCR to identify the macrophages’ cytokine profiles. BMDM from EL-RSV infected mice present different, more inflammatory cytokine profiles when compared with BMDM from naive control mice, suggesting that EL-RSV infection alters long-term macrophage phenotype, which could contribute to asthma development later in life. The mechanism involving the production of pro-inflammatory macrophages could potentially serve as a target for therapeutic treatment of RSV to ultimately help children live healthier lives.
