Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) prevents killing of virulent and phoP mutant Salmonella typhimurium by inhibiting IFN-gamma stimulated NADPH oxidative pathways in murine macrophages.

Vasoactive intestinal peptide is an immunomodulator with great potential in the treatment of inflammatory pathology. In this study, we have examined the effect of VIP on the growth dynamics of virulent Salmonella enterica. Serovar typhimurium (S. typhimurium) 14028 and 4/74 and an avirulent mutant (14028 phoP) in a murine, macrophage cell line (J774.2). In contrast to standard growth dynamics, in which phoP mutants do not survive in macrophages, we show that VIP (10(-10) M) significantly enhances phoP growth over a 24 h post-infection period even when the cells are co-cultured with IFN-gamma. We examined the effect of VIP on the generation of NADPH-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) in Salmonella-infected/IFN-gamma cultured J774 cells. VIP inhibited gp91 mRNA levels, gp91 protein and subsequent ROS. The importance of ROS in killing of Salmonella by J774 cells was highlighted by experiments in which ROS production by J774 cells was inhibited using a conventional inhibitor, N-acetyl-L-cysteine captopril (ACC) and in which Salmonella growth significantly increased. Our findings suggest that although VIP inhibits inflammatory pathways in myeloid cells it also promotes the growth of avirulent (phoP) mutants.