Silk Peptide Regulates the Level of Immunoglobulin from Young and Aged C57BL/6 Mice Serum

Abstract

Immune system contributes to increasing old people chanced of developing metabolic disease in aged‐related change. Age‐associated changes of the immune system include the enhancement of a pre‐inflammatory cytokine and immunoglobulin production induces dysfunctional immune response. It is important to maintain proper amount of cytokine and immunoglobulin within the serum, but the elderly fail to maintain constancy in immune response. In particular, the immunoglobulin secreted by plasma B cells play a key role in the defense against pathogens in adaptive immunity. According to the homeostasis of immunoglobulin is very important. Aging increases levels of serum IgG, IgA and IgM, which reduces sensitivity to several antigen and causes a reaction to self‐antigen. We suggested regulate the homeostasis of immunoglobulin in aged mice serum by effective natural compound. Silk peptide is well known as bioactive component and a natural water‐soluble glycoprotein extracted from raw silk cocoons. However, remains unknown whether it is effective for immune response in aged mice. In this study, aged and young female C57BL/6 mice were orally administered the Silk peptide daily, and total serum were analyzed from aged and young mice. In conclusion, the increased amount of immunoglobulin in aged mouse serum was reduced as much as the young mouse by Silk peptide. This novel result determines that Silk peptide has potent to use in immune therapies to recover a humoral response of aging society.