Inflammation by Toxoplasma gondii Infection Induces Prostatic Hyperplasia and Accompanying Urinary Dysfunction

Abstract

Benign prostatic hyperplasia is the non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate. This syndrome develops as men age and affects 50% of men by the age of 50 and 80% of men by the age of 80. BPH is associated with a pattern of symptoms and pathology in patients that can be painful, problematic, and lower the quality of life. BPH is a multifactorial disease which may develop due to lifestyle choices, genetics, metabolic disorder, and potentially infection of the organ. Interestingly, previous work from our research group showed that the common parasite T. gondii can infect and establish a chronic infection in the prostate of mice resulting in histological hyperplasia and glandular nodule formation, reminiscent of that observed in men with BPH. This leads to the hypothesis that T. gondii contributes to BPH in humans. In this work, we investigated whether there is a correlation between T. gondii infection and BPH using a cohort of age matched BPH diagnosed and non-BPH diagnosed control donors. My data show that men diagnosed with BPH are significantly more likely to have evidence of T. gondii infection than undiagnosed controls. Additionally, men with antibodies against T. gondii and BPH had significantly more severe pathology in several categories including and most notably in epithelial and glandular nodules seen only in a steroid hormone model of the disease. Moreover, I have determined that mice infected with parasites demonstrated abnormal urination pattern behavior indicating lower urinary tract dysfunction. Based on these results, we conclude that T. gondii can contribute to the development and severity of BPH and BPH pathology in humans. In addition, T. gondii can potentially be used as a model for BPH and BPH-like symptoms and pathology in mice and other model organisms.