Avaliação da atividade anti-inflamatória do citronelal sobre funções de linfócitos murinos

Abstract

Inflammation is a physiological process that aims to protect the body from infection and injury. However, numerous conditions lead to pathological inflammation, and this imbalance needs to be treated therapeutically. Natural plants have been used for millennia for diseases treatment, and modern science has allowed the isolation and identification of active compounds. Citronellal is an herbal substance with proven efficacy in the treatment of inflammation, among other effects, but little is known about its performance in cells of the immune system. Therefore, in this work we sought to evaluate the anti-inflammatory potential of citronellal on lymphocytes, important cells that govern the inflammatory process. For this purpose, murine lymphocytes were obtained from subcutaneous lymph nodes (CEP authorization No. 028370 / 2010-07) and exposed to citronellal for 1 hour before each assay. The interference of citronellal treatment on lymphocytes over migration, adhesion, expression of adhesion molecules and fractions of actin filaments was evaluated. In this study, citronellal reduced the capacity of both spontaneous and targeted (CXCL12-induced chemotaxis) migration of lymphocytes, independent of the subpopulation of lymphocytes (T-CD4+, T-CD8+ and B220+). At another assay, citronellal treatment was shown to increase total lymphocyte adhesion, with a marked increase in B220 + lymphocytes. When evaluating two important adhesion molecules participating in the recruitment, VLA-4 and CD62L, treatment with citronellal was able to reduce the number of VLA-4+ lymphocytes, however without altering the mean expression of this surface receptor, and none alteration was observed for CD62L. As migration, adhesion and integrins are related to the cellular cytoskeleton for its functioning, the evaluation of filamentous actin (F-actin) is extremely relevant and it has been shown that citronellal increased the levels of F-actin in lymphocytes, mainly in the types CD4+ and CD8+ cells. Thus, all the results indicate that citronellal exerts an effect on the mobilization of lymphocytes, with remarkable modulation of the F-actin cytoskeleton.