Transcriptional responses of PBMC in psychosocially stressed animals indicate an alerting of the immune system in female but not in castrated male pigs.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Brain and immune system are linked in a bi-directional manner. To date, it remained largely unknown why immune components become suppressed, enhanced, or remain unaffected in relation to psychosocial stress. Therefore, we mixed unfamiliar pigs with different levels of aggressiveness. We separated castrated male and female pigs into psychosocially high- and low- stressed animals by skin lesions, plasma cortisol level, and creatine kinase activity obtained from agonistic behaviour associated with regrouping. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were collected post-mortem and differential gene expression was assessed using the Affymetrix platform (n = 16).

Results

Relevant stress-dependent alterations were found only between female samples, but not between castr

SUBMITTER: Oster M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4233077 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature