Ovotransferrin enhances intestinal immune response in cyclophosphamide-induced immunosuppressed mice

Ovotransferrin (OVT), a glycoprotein from avian egg, which has a variety of biological activities and immunomodulatory effects. The purpose of this research was to demonstrate the effect of OVT on intestinal immunomodulatory function which used a mouse model of cyclophosphamide (CP) induced intestinal immunosuppression and injury by intraperitoneal injection of 80 mg/kg. Effects of OVT on intestinal immunomodulatory function in CP-induced immunosuppression mice were detected by flow cytometry, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and western blot. Results showed that OVT effectively increased the major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II) and cluster of differentiation 83 (CD83) levels to enhance intestinal dendritic cells (DCs) maturation and promoted the expression of cytokines and gene of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin-4 (IL-4) and interleukin-10 (IL-10). Furthermore, the imbalance ratio of the Th1 and Th2 in the intestine was regulated to produce an immune response and the expression of immunoglobulin A (IgA) and secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) were increased to promote humoral immunity by OVT-treated. Meanwhile, cyclophosphamide treatment induces activation of p38 MAPK, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) to causes intestinal damage and blockage of p38 MAPK, JNK and ERK activation contributed to the effect of OVT on the repair of intestinal damage. These results indicated that OVT may have immunomodulatory function and could be potential functional factor to regulate body intestinal immunity.