Evaluation the effect of culture supernatant of CT26 tumor cells on lesion caused by Leishmania major in BALB/c mice

Leishmania major is the agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis, which leads to tissue lesions resistant to treatment and scarring at the site of injury. The use of treatment methods based on chemical compounds is the first line of treatment in patients, despite the side effects, do not lead to complete recovery. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of soluble factors caused by CT26 in regulating the immune response against the cutaneous leishmaniasis.

Female BALB/c mice were infected with the standard strain of Leishmania major and after the appearance of lesion, the supernatant of CT26 cells was injected into the mice with cutaneous leishmaniasis in two forms, intravenously and intra-lesion. After 30 days of treatment, tissue samples of the spleen and macrophage cells were removed from the peritoneal cavity to investigate cell proliferation and phagocytosis. The data were statistically analyzed using SPSS (version 20), one-way ANOVA followed by post hoc Tukey’s test (Pvalues ≤0.05).

The lesion size was larger in the groups treated with the supernatant of CT26 cells intravenously and intralesion, but this difference was not significant. The amount of lymphocyte proliferation, phagocytosis and subsequently inflammation of the lesion area in the group treated with cell supernatant was higher than in the control group, but this increase was not significant.

The use of soluble factors from CT26 cell culture supernatant can lead to a change in the immune response in the cutaneous leishmaniasis lesion model, which should be further investigated to determine the effective factors in this field.