Wuchereria bancrofti: diminished platelet activation in filarial patients

Blood platelets are the innate immune elements that have not been investigated in human filarial infections. Platelet activation status in the endemic normals (EN), microfilaria positive individuals (MF) and patients with chronic pathology (CP) was evaluated in whole blood, under unstimulated as well as antigen exposed (BmA, E. coli) conditions for PAC-1 expression by Flow cytometry. A diminished PAC-1 expression was observed in MF compared to CP and EN spontaneously as well as upon antigen exposure. Besides this, PAC-1 expression within the groups did not exhibit any significant difference under all the experimental conditions. However in CP patients, E. coli antigen exposure resulted in a significantly reduced PAC-1 expression compared to the spontaneous expression levels. NO release in platelet culture supernatants from EN was inversely proportional to platelet aggregation. Collagen stimulated platelets from EN, exposed to sera and immune complexes from CP and MF patients resulted in elevated Nitric Oxide (NO) release, compared to those exposed to autologous sera and fetal calf serum. In addition, under similar conditions, collagen stimulated platelets from EN, exposed to filarial antigen (BmA) exhibited increased NO compared to the E. coli antigen exposed ones and light microscopic observations of cultured platelets supported the above findings. Thus it appears from the results of the present study that filarial antigen may play a role in the loss of platelet aggregation, leading to platelet inactivation.