Infection with a Helminth Parasite Attenuates Autoimmunity through TGF-β-Mediated Suppression of Th17 and Th1 Responses
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The lower incidence of allergy and autoimmune diseases in developing countries has been associated with a high prevalence of parasitic infections. Here we provide direct experimental evidence that parasites can exert bystander immunosuppression of pathogenic T cells that mediate autoimmune diseases. Infection of mice with Fasciola hepatica resulted in recruitment of dendritic cells, macrophages, eosinophils, neutrophils, and CD4(+) T cells into the peritoneal cavity. The dendritic cells and macrophages in infected mice expressed IL-10 and latency-associated peptide, and they had low surface expression of costimulatory molecules and/or MHC class II. Furthermore, most CD4(+) T cells in the peritoneal cavity of infected mice secreted IL-10, but not IFN-gamma or IL-4. There was a less significant expansion of CD4(+)Foxp3(+) T cells. F. hepatica-specific Tr1-type clones generated from infected mice suppressed proliferation and IFN-gamma production by Th1 cells. Infection was associated with suppression of parasite-specific Th1 and Th2 responses, which was reversed in IL-10-defective mice. Infection with F. hepatica also exerted bystander suppression of immune responses to autoantigens and attenuated the clinical signs of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Protection was associated with suppression of autoantigen-specific IFN-gamma and IL-17 production. The suppression of Th1 and Th17 responses and attenuation of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis by F. hepatica was maintained in IL-10(-/-) mice but was reversed by neutralization of TGF-beta in vivo. Our study provides evidence that F. hepatica-induced IL-10 subverts parasite-specific Th1 and Th2 responses, but that F. hepatica-induced TGF-beta plays a critical role in bystander suppression of autoantigen-specific Th1 and Th17 responses that mediate autoimmune diseases.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".