Figure 1

Vagotomy affects induction of oral tolerance and accumulation of antigen-specific regulatory T cells in the lamina propria. (A) Wild type C57BL/6 mice were subjected to vagotomy (VGX) or pyloroplasty (PP) two weeks before 3 intragastric gavages (i.g.) of ovalbumin (OVA) to induce oral tolerance. After 1 wk, all mice were subcutaneously (s.c.) immunized against OVA in CFA and challenged in the footpad 7 d later with heat-aggregated OVA. Footpad swelling was measured 48 h after OVA challenge by foodpad injection. Footpad swelling was calculated as difference between prior to and 48 h after injection of OVA. (B) Footpad swelling was calculated in mice receiving 3 intragastric gavages (i.g.) of PBS or OVA and subjected to VGX or PP. In PP alone mice the reduction in footpad swelling is indicative of establishment of oral tolerance while VGX failed to develop oral tolerance. (C) OT-II naïve CD4 T cells were adoptively transferred into syngeneic VGX and PP recipients before two oral doses of 50 mg OVA. Conversion and accumulation of OT-II naïve CD4 T cells into Tregs were analyzed 5 and 12 d after adoptive transfer. Representative dot plot of transferred OTII T cells (CD45.1⁺CD4⁺ cells) and Tregs (CD45.1⁺CD4⁺CD25⁺FoxP3⁺ cells) generated out of adoptively transferred OT-II CD45.1 ⁺CD4⁺ cells and frequencies in small intestine lamina propria (D) and MLNs (E) are displayed. Circles represent individual mice. Data are representative of two independent experiments. Statistical significance was determined with unpaired Student f-test (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ns, not significant).