UPREGULATION OF ?-CATENIN AND CADHERIN EXPRESSION IN HEARTS OF MICE IN ACUTE AND CHRONIC PHASE OF EXPERIMENTAL Trypanosoma cruzi infection

Abstract

Adherens junctions proteins have also been envolved in pathological mechanism of chagasic myocardiopathy. Aimed to determine the nature of these alterations, ten Swiss Webster male mice, 25 days-old were infected with a Type III strain of Trypanosoma cruzi through intraperitoneal (IP) route with 1.0 x 104 trypomastigotes/mouse. Five infected mice were killed at 14th day (parasitemia peak) of infection (group A). Another five infected mice (group C), were killed three months after inoculation, representing the chronic phase of the infection. Ten mice were injected through IP route with sterile 0.9% sodium chloride solution and were maintained under the same general conditions of the other groups. Five mice were killed either on day 14 (group CA) and five were killed at the end of the third month (group CC), and served as uninfected controls. Adherens junctions were analyzed by total lysate of the hearts that were immunoblotted for pan-cadherin and β-catenin. Western blot analysis revealed increases of cadherins in both acute (2.1-fold ± 0.89, p= 0.048) and chronic (2.1-fold ± 0.92, p= 0.05) phase versus its respective controls. In relation to β-catenin the results showed the same pattern characterized by increases in its levels also in acute (6.8-fold ± 4.65, p= 0.047) and chronic (3.65-fold ± 1.93, p= 0.033) phase in relation to controls. Thus, these results point to the evolvement of adherens junction proteins with pathological events in hearts of mice infected with T. cruzi infection.

KEY WORDS: Adherens junctions, Chagas disease, myocarditis, western blotting.