Effect of cyclosporin A on murine experimental Salmonellosis

Abstract

Investigations were undertaken to evaluate the effect of cyclosporin A (CyA) on primary infection of mice with Salmonella typhimurium. Further, its effect on delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) and antibody response to porin, an outer membrane protein of S. typhimurium, has been characterized under different CyA regimen. When mice were infected i.p. with 5 * 10(4) live medium virulent organisms, the bacterial growth increased by about 2 log10 in CyA treated mice. CyA administered daily for 2 weeks following immunization with porin caused profound suppression of DTH and both IgM and IgG antibody responses. Given a single dose of CyA 24 h before DTH elicitation, the drug had a marked suppressive effect on DTH, but not on the antibody response to porin. Treatment on days 0-5 following immunization had no effect on the manifestation of the DTH response nor on the anti-porin IgM response whereas an enhanced level of IgG was observed in this group.