Trypanosoma cruzi: The effects of zinc supplementation in the immune response during the course of experimental disease.

Zinc is an essential nutritional component required for normal development and maintenance of immune functions. The possible effects of zinc in upregulating the host immune response during the acute and chronic phases of experimental Chagas' disease were evaluated. In young, infected and Zn-supplemented animals, higher concentrations of IFN-gamma and NO were observed. During the chronic phase, decreased concentrations of NO and IFN-gamma were found for older infected animals that received Zn supplementation. For young animals, hearts from Zn-supplemented groups displayed reduced inflammatory infiltrate, heart weight and number of amastigote burdens. For older, infected and Zn-supplemented animals amastigote nests were absent with reduced inflammatory cell infiltrate. This study identifies a potentially novel therapeutic approach that could control the parasite load during acute phase of disease, consequently preventing the deleterious, parasite-elicited responses observed during chronic phase.