Inhibition of Trypanosoma cruzi-specific immune responses by a protein produced by T. cruzi in the course of Chagas' disease

Immunosuppression is readily demonstrable in the acute phase of Trypanosoma cruzi infection but subsides during the chronic phase. In vitro, living T. cruzi induces important alterations in mitogen-activated human T and B lymphocytes and inhibits their capacity to proliferate. These effects are reproduced by a protein spontaneously released by this parasite, termed trypanosomal immunosuppressive factor (TIF). In this study we asked whether TIF would also inhibit a T. cruzi-specific immune response and if it is produced in a mammalian host during infection. A significant reduction in the level of [3H]thymidine incorporation by spleen cells from chronically infected mice stimulated with a T. cruzi antigen preparation ensued when TIF was added to the cultures. Production of TIF in T. cruzi-infected individuals was denoted by the ability of serum IgG from either chronically infected patients or mice to abolish, in a concentration-dependent manner, the capacity of TIF to suppress interleukin-2 receptor expression by phytohaemagglutinin-stimulated human lymphocytes. This neutralizing activity was absent in the IgG fractions prepared from sera of healthy volunteers, noninfected mice or mice killed at different times during acute T. cruzi infection. Circulating anti-TIF antibodies represent indirect evidence of TIF production in vivo which, together with TIF-mediated inhibition of T. cruzi-specific lymphoproliferation, raise the possibility that TIF controls anti-parasite immune responses in vivo. The presence of TIF-neutralizing antibodies during chronic but not acute T. cruzi infection may be one of the reasons why immunosuppression is confined to the acute stage.