Avril Walters - IUIS Beijing ICI 2019 Presentation

09 Dec 2019
09 Dec 2019

Avril Walters was one of eighteen members of the Division of Immunology who attended the 17th International Congress of Immunology held in Beijing in October. Avril successfully presented his research on "The influence of TNFRp75 on alveolar macrophage and neutrophil responses to early BCG infection".

Avril Walters - The influence of TNFRp75 on alveolar macrophage and neutrophil responses to early BCG infection

I presented on some data showing the influence of TNFRp75 on alveolar macrophage (AM) and neutrophil responses to BCG infection. We studied the differences between wild type and TNFRp75 deficient mice by fluorescently labelling the cells to monitor the difference in neutrophil recruitment, AM and neutrophil pathogen uptake and presentation, and differences in pro-inflammatory cytokine production 24 hours post infection. Our findings showed that in the absence of TNFRp75 CCL2, CCL3 and IL-1β were significantly upregulated in the BAL fluid as compared to the WT mice. We also found that the number of TNFRp75 deficient AMs expressing MHCII and GFP (BCG-GFP uptake) were significantly higher than in the WT. Our data suggests that TNFRp75 supresses the AM responses in response to pulmonary BCG infection and therefore reduces host protection however there were no differences in neutrophil responses.