title: The role of sympathetic innervation of the gut in regulating mucosal immune responses.
abstract: The effects of chemical sympathectomy on the mucosal compartments of the immune system were examined in adult rats. Ablation of the sympathetic nervous system using 6-hydroxydopamine in recipient animals reduced the migration into Peyer's patches and mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) of adoptively transferred cells from MLN of normal donors. The mucosal immune response to ovalbumin (OVA), assessed by enumeration of anti-OVA antibody containing cells (AOCC) in the lamina propria after intestinal immunisation, was reduced in animals sympathectomized prior to immunization. In order to identify whether this reduction in AOCC response in intestinally immunized sympathectomized animals was due to a defect in migration of AOCC precursors to the intestinal lamina propria, the effect of chemical sympathectomy on the appearance of AOCC in the gut of immunized animals after adoptive transfer of AOCC precursors was investigated. The IgA-specific AOCC response was significantly reduced in sympathectomized recipients compared to the control group. Taken together these results demonstrate that the peripheral sympathetic nervous system influences the migration and accumulation in vivo of both naive and memory/effector lymphocytes in mucosal lymphoid tissues.
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Anatomy and Pathology, University of Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: González-Ariki
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Husband
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000917:Antibody Formation / Q000502:physiology; D000921:Antibody-Producing Cells / Q000473:pathology; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D007422:Intestines / Q000294:innervation*; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000502:physiology; D010047:Ovalbumin / Q000276:immunology; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D013563:Sympathectomy, Chemical; D013564:Sympathetic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010047:Ovalbumin