Progesterone Decreased Cell Infiltration in Airways of Systemic Sclerosis Mice Model

Author Info

Fatemeh Vafashoar Kazem Mousavizadeh Hadi Poormoghim Pendar Safari Amir Haghighi Nazanin Mojtabavi

Corresponding Author

Nazanin Mojtabavi
Institute of immunology and infectious disease, immunology research center, Iran University of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran

A B S T R A C T

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is the fibrotic autoimmune disease with a higher incidence in women. Lung fibrosis is the most common cause of death in SSc patients. Sex steroids have crucial role in the induction of autoimmune diseases. Progesterone impacts autoimmunity by direct action on parenchymal cells or through its immunomodulatory effect. This study aimed to investigate the effect of progesterone on the cellularity of airways in an animal model of systemic sclerosis. 6 groups of mice were considered in this study. Systemic sclerosis (SSc) was induced in female BALB/c mice by subcutaneous injection of bleomycin for 28 days. For evaluating the effect of Progesterone in SSc model, Progesterone was administered subcutaneously parallel with bleomycin for 28 days or one week after the first administration of bleomycin for 21 days. Further, three control groups were included in this study. On day 29, under lethal anesthesia bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) was collected and evaluated for cellularity. Our results indicate the increment of cells in BAL of SSc (P<0.0001) mice. Administration of Progesterone for 28 days significantly reduced the infiltrating cells in BALs (P<0.01) of SSc mice. The differential count of BALs indicates that Progesterone reduced the number of lymphocytes (P˂0.05) in SSc mice but did not affect the number of macrophages. Therefore, we conclude that progesterone reduced the inflammatory cells in airways by decreasing the number of lymphocytes.

Article Info

Article Type

Research Article

Publication history

Received: Sat 02, May 2020
Accepted: Fri 22, May 2020
Published: Thu 27, Aug 2020

Copyright

© 2023 Nazanin Mojtabavi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.RGM.2020.01.06