Last Monday (20-02) Professor Reina Mebius, from the VUMC in Amsterdam gave, as usually, a very elegant and convincing seminar (entitled: “Lymphoid tissue formation during development and chronic inflammatory diseases”)!
She came up with surprising data that show that increasing the quantity of vitamin A in the diet of pregnant mouse mothers has a dramatic influence on the size of the LN of the newborns. She clearly demonstrates that the more the vitamin A the bigger the LN. Importantly, this effect is also observed in adult mice. Therefore, the factors that influence lymphoid organ size have consequences that last during all the animal life. These data are consistent with previous studies from Mebius’ lab, showing that the signals that control the first events for LN formation are dependent on retinoic acid, which is a metabolite of vitamin A (see Nat Immunol 2009 Chemokine CXCL13 is essential for lymph node initiation and is induced by retinoic acid and neuronal stimulation)
So here is the take home message that I got from this seminar: intake of vitamin A during pregnancy affects the size of secondary lymphoid organs in the offspring.
Ps: doing a quick search on pub med I realized that Prof Mebius has had a long lasting interest in vitamins and immune responses (see Vitamins in control of lymphocyte migration )