Helminth infection induces innate immune priming in plasmacytoid dendritic cells

Lamin B Cham; Bradley Whitehead; Marvin Werner; Frederikke Jensen; Mads Zippor; Trine H Mogensen; Mihai G Netea; Andrew R Williams; Peter Nejsum

doi:10.1093/infdis/jiaf009

Helminth infection induces innate immune priming in plasmacytoid dendritic cells

J Infect Dis. 2025 Jan 7:jiaf009. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiaf009. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Lamin B Cham^{1

2

3}, Bradley Whitehead^{2

3}, Marvin Werner^{3

4}, Frederikke Jensen^{2

3}, Mads Zippor^{2

3}, Trine H Mogensen^{3

4}, Mihai G Netea⁵, Andrew R Williams⁶, Peter Nejsum^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arabian Gulf University, 26671 Manama, Bahrain.
² Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, 8220 Aarhus, Denmark.
³ Department of Infectious Diseases, Aarhus University Hospital, 8200 Aarhus, Denmark.
⁴ Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
⁵ Department of Internal Medicine and Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark.

PMID: 39776172
DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiaf009

Abstract

Heligmosomoides polygyrus co-infection is reported to have protective antiviral effects against pulmonary viral infections. To investigate a potential underlying mechanism, we infected C57BL/6 mice with H. polygyrus larvae for two weeks. Bone marrow (BM)-derived plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) were generated and stimulated with TLR agonists. We found increased expression of type 1 interferon genes (Ifnα1, Ifnα4, Ifnβ1, Mx1, Isg15), increased TNF, IL-6, IL-10 secretion, and higher expression of antigen presentation markers in BM-derived-pDCs from infected mice compared to naïve control. Our findings may partly explain the mechanism of the antiviral protection previously reported in acute helminth infections.

Keywords: H. polygyrus; Bone marrow; antiviral; helminth; plasmacytoid dendritic cells.

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