Effect of progesterone on jurkat cells stimulated with plasma of pregnant women with preeclampsia

• Grant number: 22/11362-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: January 16, 2023
• End date: March 15, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Maternal and Child Health
• Principal Investigator: Maria Terezinha Serrão Peraçoli
• Grantee: Patrícia Braga da Silva
• Supervisor: Lorena Machado Amaral
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FMB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/12564-2 - Profile of TNF-alpha receptors expressed in Th17 CD4+ lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of pregnant women with preeclampsia, BP.MS

Abstract

Pregnant women with preeclampsia (PE) present a shift in the immune response to an inflammatory profile, resulting from the endogenous activation of innate and adaptive immunity cells. TNF-± can exert different functional effects on CD4+ T lymphocyte subsets through interaction with TNFR1 and TNFR2 receptors. The binding of TNF-± to these two receptors activates different signaling pathways. TNFR1 induces cell death by apoptosis or necrosis and is also important for the development of inflammatory effector T cells, whereas TNFR2 is preferentially expressed by regulatory T cells (Treg). In PE the deviation toward an inflammatory profile could be due to the failure in modulating mechanisms capable of regulating inflammation, like progesterone decrease. Treatment with progesterone could restore the normal distribution of TNF receptors in PE. This project aims to evaluate the effects of progesterone on tumor necrosis factor receptors (TNFR1 and TNFR2) expression by Jurkat cells after stimulation with plasma from pregnant women with preeclampsia. Jurkat cells line will be cultured until reaching 80% confluence and then incubated with progesterone in a medium with 20% (v/v) of plasmas from pregnant women with PE or healthy pregnant women. The cells and supernatant will be used to perform the assays. The expression of the surface receptors TNFR1 and TNFR2 will be evaluated after stimulation of cells by flow cytometry. The concentration of soluble forms of TNFR (sTNFR1 and sTNFR2) as well as TNF-±, and IL-10 in the supernatant of Jurkat cells, will be determined by ELISA. The results will be analyzed using parametric or non-parametric tests with a significance level of 5%. (AU)