Toxoplasma gondii chronic infection decreases visceral nociception through peripheral opioid receptor signaling.

Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101238921 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1553-7374 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 15537366 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS Pathog Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science, c2005-

Toxoplasma*/immunology ; Toxoplasmosis*/immunology ; Toxoplasmosis*/metabolism ; Nociception*/physiology ; Receptors, Opioid*/metabolism; Animals ; Mice ; Signal Transduction ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Chronic Disease

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
By eliciting immune activation in the digestive tract, intestinal pathogens may perturb gut homeostasis. Some gastrointestinal infections can indeed increase the risk of developing post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome (PI-IBS). Intriguingly, the prevalent foodborne parasite Toxoplasma gondii has not been linked to the development of PI-IBS and the impact of this infection on colon homeostasis remains ill-defined. We show in a mouse model that latent T. gondii decreases visceral nociceptive responses in an opioid signaling-dependent manner. Despite the accumulation of Th1 and cytotoxic T cells in the colon of latently infected mice, the selective invalidation of enkephalin gene in T cells ruled out the involvement of T cell-derived enkephalins in hypoalgesia. These findings provide clues about how this widespread infection durably shapes the gut immune landscape and modifies intestinal physiological parameters. They suggest that in contrast to other gut microbes, T. gondii infection could be negatively associated with abdominal pain.
(Copyright: © 2025 Audibert et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

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0 (Receptors, Opioid)

Date Created: 20250429 Date Completed: 20250512 Latest Revision: 20250514

20250514

PMC12068698

10.1371/journal.ppat.1013106

40300021