The role of type I interferon for the lower respiratory infection induced by Haemophilus influenzae

2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24791026
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Infectious disease medicine
• Research Institution: Nagasaki University
• Principal Investigator: NAKAMURA Shigeki 長崎大学, 医歯(薬)学総合研究科, 助教 (20399752)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
• Keywords: 感染免疫 / 自然免疫

Research Abstract

We examined the mechanism of chronic lower respiratory infection (cLRT) induced by Haemophilus influenzae with focusing the tissue-invasive ability especially bronchial epithelial cells. Twenty-one clinical isolates of H.influenzae were measured the ability of tissue-invasion and there were significant differences of the invasion ability between each strain. In addition, the production of type I IFN in the supernatant of the cell lines infected with high-invasive strains has increased significantly compared to the low-invasive strains.
In general, type I IFN has the inhibitory effect against the viral infection, however we found new insight of type I IFN to accelerate the LRT infection induced with H.influenzae, and this finding will be contribute to elucidate the mechanism of bacterial cLRT.