Abstract:

In order to explore the effect of casein-glycomacropeptide (CGMP) on the intestinal mucosal immune response in normal mice, 28 female BALB/c mice were randomly divided into 4 groups for 7 mice in each group and by gavage given physiological saline (as control group) or CGMP at dosages of 30, 120μg/d and 300μg/d (low-, medium- and high-dosage groups) for 16 consecutive days. After treatment, all the mice were sacrificed and their spleen, peyer s patches and mesenteric lymph node (MLN) were collected to examine the change of CD3+, CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+T lymphocytes subpopulations using flow cytometry. The results indicated that CGMP resulted in a significant increase in CD3+ and CD3+CD4+ lymphocytes in spleen and peyer s patches (P＜0.05) in a dosage-dependent manner. Compared with the control group, high-dosage CGMP administration resulted in a higher percentage of CD3+CD8+ lymphocytes in spleen(P＜0.05), and low-dosage CGMP administration made the CD3+CD4+/CD3+CD8+ ratio significantly (P ＜ 0.05) increase but the percentage of CD3+CD8+ lymphocytes in MLN significantly decrease (P＜0.01). The above results demonstrate that long-term gastric perfusion of CGMP can induce intestinal mucosal adaptive immune response without tolerance to its oral administration.

Key words: CGMP, T lymphocyte subgroup, MLN, peyer s patch, spleen