The role of apaptosis in the suppression of lymphoproliferation which is observed in animals fed diets rich in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references.Dietary fish oil has been shown to be anti-inflammatory, and to relieve the symptoms of some inflammatory diseases in humans. It is thought that n-3 fatty acids found in fish oils may act to suppress T cell activation, which is a prerequisite for many types of inflammation. Previously, we demonstratied that splenocyte cultures of mice fed diets reich in the n-3 fatty acid eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) undergo a higher degree of apoptosis, or programmed cell death, upon stimulation, than celks from mice fed the n-6 fatty acid control diet, and that increased apoptosis was correlated with decreased proliferation in those cultures. In the present study we show that T cells from animals fed diets rich in fish oils have a lower proliferative response and a higher incidence of apoptosis when stimulated with a-CD3/aCD28 than similarly stimulated T cells from mice fed the arachidonic acid and corn oil (n-6) enriched diets. This indicates that an aCD3/aCD28 activation induced mechanism of apoptosis is modulated by dietary fatty acid, and could explain diet-induced alterations in T cell function