抄録
Environmental factors are thought to be critical problems for the increase in allergy including bronchial asthma and atopic dermatitis (AD). Especially, environmental chemicals should be an important participant in the environmental factors. For example, phthalates, ubiquitously used as plasticizers in many polyvinylchloride consumer products, have become widespread in the environment. Several epidemiological studies have suggested that exposure to phthalates may be associated with development of asthma, wheezing, and allergic symptoms. Experimental studies have shown that phthalates have an adjuvant effect on Ig production in mice.
In our previous study, we have shown that phthalates aggravate AD-like skin lesions induced by mite antigen in atopic-prone NC/Nga mice and the aggravation is consistent with eosinophilic inflammation, mast cell degranulation, and chemokine expression in inflammatory site. In addition, we have found that in vitro exposure to phthalates enhance the expression of cell surface activation markers on bone marrow-derived dendritic cells and their production of chemokines, as well as their capacity to stimulate mite antigen specific T-cell proliferation and also enhance IL-4 production and cell proliferation of splenocytes. These results demonstrate that phthalates can aggravate AD-like skin lesions and the mechanisms underlying the aggravation might be partly mediated through the activation of dendritic cells and through direct or indirect activation of T-cells. This presentation will focus on the function of immune cells in the aggravation of allergic diseases by environmental chemicals such as phthalates.
