Vitamin E Suppresses the Enhancement of Phagocytosis and Oxidative Burst of Neutrophil to E.coli by Systemic Hypoxia

Abstract

This study elucidates how various hypoxic interventions affect phagocytosis and oxidative burst of neutrophil to E.coli following treatment with/without vitamin E. Twenty‐four healthy sedentary men were randomly divided into vitamin E (n=12) and placebo (n=12) groups. These subjects were randomly exposed to 12% (severe hypoxia, SH), 15% (moderate hypoxia, MH), and 18% (light hypoxia, LH) O2 for 2 hours in a normobaric hypoxia chamber. Our results demonstrated that SH increased phagocyotic and oxidative burst activities as well as CD11b, CD16b and CD62L expressions of neutrophils, which correlated with an increase in urinary isoprostane level and decreases in plasma total antioxidant content. Following the treatment of the subjects with 1000 IU vitamin E, SH did not significantly alter isoprostane/total antioxidant levels, phagocyotic/oxidative burst activities and adhesion molecules expressions of neutrophils. Additionally, both neutrophil activity and redox status were constant in response to MH and LH in the two groups. Therefore, we conclude that SH promotes phagocytosis and oxidative burst of neutrophils, and this hypoxia effect was ameliorated by pretreatment with vitamin E.