Protease-treated Mycobacterium phlei antigen induced secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokine from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of goat behaved as gamma delta T-cells mitogen

In the present report, caprine immune system has been taken as a model to detect the in-vitro secretion of inflammatory cytokine, if any, by protease-treated mycobacterial antigen. Trypsin and chymotrypsin treated M. phlei soluble antigens have been found to have potential to induce secretion of macrophage migration inhibition factor (MIF) from the mononuclear cells (MNC) of goats. MNC culture supernatant stimulated with these antigens was found to have proinflammatory cytokine activity as detected by indirect leukocyte migration inhibition test (LMIT) and delayed type of hypersensitivity (DTH) reaction. On in vitro stimulation of naïve goat lymphocytes with protease-treated mycobacterial antigen, there was an increase of T cells population. The results indicated that the enzyme treated mycobacterial antigens have T-cell proliferating ability with concomitant secretion of inflammatory cytokines from unprimed goat lymphocytes, which may be of use for augmenting innate immuneresponse in a beneficial manner.