Abstract
The animal immune response to chitin is not well understood and needs to be investigated further. However, this is a challenging topic to study because of the technical difficulties in purifying chitin, and because this material usually comes associated with contaminating components that can activate the immune system. In this study, improvements to previously described purification protocols were investigated for chitin obtained from different sources, including commercial shellfish, Candida albicans yeast and hyphal cell walls, as well as cell walls of the filamentous fungi Aspergillus fumigatus and Mucor circinelloides. The immune response to these different chitin preparations was tested using human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. In agreement with previous literature, small chitin particles of an average size of 0.2 µm were not immunogenic. On the other hand, bigger chitin particles induced in some cases a pro-inflammatory response. The results of this work suggest that not only the purity and size of the chitin particles, but also their shape can influence immune recognition.
Highlights
Chitin is a polymer of β-1,4-N-Acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) that is very abundant in the animal world, it is not synthesized by humans
It is composed of α-chitin, which consists of antiparallel chains of N-Acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) that results in strong intermolecular bonding
Determining the response of the immune system to chitin is important, since it is a component of the cell walls of pathogenic fungi
Summary
Chitin is a polymer of β-1,4-N-Acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) that is very abundant in the animal world, it is not synthesized by humans. It is mostly known as a component of the exoskeleton of arthropods and the cell walls of fungi [1], but it is common in cephalopods and has been found in one species of fish [2]. Α-Chitin is composed of antiparallel chains of GlcNAc, allowing for strong intermolecular bonding. It is commonly found in the shells of crustaceans like shrimp and crabs, and in fungi. In recent years there has been an increase in research on chitin due to its potential use in biomedicine (tissue regeneration, wound healing, drug delivery, gene therapy, immunology), antimicrobial properties (food technology, agriculture) and engineering of biomaterials, among others (reviewed in [5])
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