Ricerc@Sapienza

Anisakiasis is a zoonotic disease caused by consumption of raw fish parasitized with Anisakis spp third stage larvae (L3). Despite Anisakis L3 cannot develop as adults in humans, they can still cause a complex disease with unspecific symptoms leading to acute or chronic forms. In fact, larval migration in the gastrointestinal tract, the excreted/secreted products and parasite extracellular vesicles (EVs) can progressively determine severe allergic manifestations, erosive, ulcerous lesions and granulomas. Recently, reports of tumors co-occurrence with Anisakis L3 are increasing. Although the question as to whether anisakiasis and carcinoma co-occurrence is accidental or not is not resolved, neoplasia and mucosal embedded larvae share a common site associated to chronic inflammation in all reported cases.
Despite the increasing public health awareness on anisakiasis, most of the mechanisms of infection, the role of host's immune response and its potential implications are still unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the inflammatory pathway in in-vitro human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma cells (Caco-2) exposed to the live L3, the crude extract (CE) and the exosomes enriched fraction, as representative of the mechanical action of larval motility, the whole body of senescent larvae and the potential inflammation silencing due to EVs contents, respectively. In particular, the activation of inflammatory response key molecules (P38, JNK, ERK1/2, NF-kB), and the amounts of the pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-8) will be analyzed.