OBJECTIVE: To verify the effect of the intraperitoneal administration of glutamine previously to a stress situation on the number of blood leukocytes and on the alveolar macrophage phagocytosis rate in rats. METHODS: Male Wistar rats (90 days old) were divided into four experimental group; control (C, n=15), stress (C+E, n=16), glutamine (GLN, n=15), and glutamine + stress (GLN+E, n=16) experimental groups and kept under standard conditions. The GLN and GLN+E groups received L-glutamine (0,2g/kg of body weight) intraperitoneally (ip) during 10 days. Their controls received L-glicine (0,4g of aa/kg of body weight) ip. The animals of C+E and GLN+E groups were submitted to acute restraint stress (40min, 24h after the last amino acid intervention). Total leukocytes were counted by hemocytometer and for differential leukocytes, count smears were used. To evaluate the phagocytosis rate, the alveolar macrophages (1x10(6) in a RPMI culture) and S. cerevisiae (1x10(7)) yeast were incubated in an incubator (37ºC, 5%CO2) for one hour. The ANOVA and TUKEY (post-hoc) tests were used for the statistical analysis of variance and the values were expressed in mean and standard deviation. RESULTS: When compared with the control group, the C+E group presented a decrease in the number of leukocytes and lymphocytes and an increase in the number of neutrophils (p<0.05). The alveolar macrophage phagocytosis rate decreased in the C+E group when compared with the control (p<0.05). This decrease remained in the GLN+E group and did not change in the GLN group (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: The administration of L-glutamine intraperitoneally does not attenuate the effect of stress on the number of blood leukocytes and phagocytic function of alveolar macrophages in rats.
glutamine; glycine; immunonutrients; stress
