Immune Cells Depletion During Wound Healing as a Long-Term Effect of Undernutrition
Depleción de Células Inmunocitarias Durante la Curación de una Herida como Efecto de Desnutrición Postnatal
Int. j. morphol; 23 (1), 2005
Publication year: 2005
Undernutrition in early life is associated with a number of acute and chronic sequelae, and recovering is a controversial issue. Even if undernutrition in Brazil is declining, studies have shown that about 31% of brazilian children still present severe or moderate malnutrition. The present study goal was to induce early malnutrition in rats and observe short- (undernourished) and long-term (after recovered) effects on defense cells involved in wound healing. Undernutrition was produced by separating the pups from the mother for 10 hours/day during the suckling period (21 days after birth). As controls were used rats at same age not submitted to suckling restriction. Undernutrition and recovering states were assessed by body weight. Skin wounds were made on the shaved backs of all, undernourished, recovered and their controls, under tribromoethanol anesthesia. Aninals were sacrificed 1, 3, 7 and 14 days after surgery and the tissues were properly prepared and observed under light microscopy.
Our results showed that:
1) neutrophils, lymphocytes and macrophages couting in healing area were lower in undernourished and in recovered animals as compared with their controls; 2) there were a basal deficiency in lymphocytes and macrophages numbers in recovered animals but not in those acutelly undernourished. These results allow us to conclude that post-nattally undernourished animals submitted to a nutritional rescue time showed a complete recovery in physical weight, but in spite of the physical recovery, the wound healing showed less defense cell density in healing areas suggesting long-term sequelae of early undernutrition.
La desnutrición postnatal está asociada a un conjunto de secuelas agudas y crónicas, y su recuperación es aún asunto controvertido. En Brasil, a pesar de estar disminuyendo la desnutrición, algunos estudios han demostrado que alrededor del 31% de los niños presentan malnutrición moderada o severa. El objetivo del presente estudio fue inducir una desnutrición precoz en ratas y observar los efectos inmediatos (desnutrición) y permanentes (depués de la recuperación) sobre las células de defensa involucradas en la cicatrización. La desnutrición fue provocada separando las crías de sus madres, por 10 horas diarias, durante el periodo de lactancia (21 días de nacidos). Como contoles fueron usadas ratas de la misma edad no sometidas a restrición láctea. Los estados de desnutrición y de recuperación fueron evaluados por el peso corporal. Las heridas fueron realizadas en la piel rasurada del dorso de los animales desnutridos, recuperados y controles, bajo anestesia con tribromoetanol. Los animales fueron sacrificados 1, 3, 7 y 14 días después de la cirugía y los tejidos de la región cicatricial fueron procesados histológicamente y examinados al microscopio óptico.