TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploratory assessment of CD4+ T lymphocytes in brown hares (Lepus europeus) using a cross-reactive anti-rabbit CD4 antibody
AU - Rütgen, Barbara C.
AU - Gerner, Wilhelm
AU - Beiglböck, Christoph
AU - Schaschl, Helmut
AU - Saalmüller, Armin
AU - Suchentrunk, Franz
AU - Essler, Sabine E.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are indebted to the animal keepers Michaela Salaba and Peter Steiger at the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology for taking care of the animals. We also thank Ilse Schwendenwein for her valuable comments on this manuscript. The helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers on the previous version of this paper are greatly acknowledged. Partial financial support for this study was provided by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), project P18534-B03 , granted to F. Suchentrunk.
PY - 2014/9/15
Y1 - 2014/9/15
N2 - In lagomorphs, lymphocyte subset distributions and the importance of CD4+ T cell levels has so far only been considered in the frame of rabbit disease models. In this study, the first assessment of CD4+ T lymphocytes in peripheral blood cells in brown hares (Lepus europaeus L., 1758), a further leporid species using a cross-reactive rabbit anti-CD4 antibody in flow cytometry, is presented. In addition, the entire coding region of the hare CD4 gene (1380bp) coding for a polypeptide of 459 amino acids has been sequenced. Using generalized least squares fitting by maximum likelihood (GLS) test, significantly (p=0.0095) higher CD4+ T cell frequencies in males than in females and significantly (p=0.0001) higher frequencies for leverets (younger than 2 months of age) than for subadult and adult (older than 7 months of age) individuals were detected. No significant age influence, however, was found for subadult and adult hares. The study is particularly meant to provide a first step in establishing a toolbox for the assessment of the immune response in this leporid species.
AB - In lagomorphs, lymphocyte subset distributions and the importance of CD4+ T cell levels has so far only been considered in the frame of rabbit disease models. In this study, the first assessment of CD4+ T lymphocytes in peripheral blood cells in brown hares (Lepus europaeus L., 1758), a further leporid species using a cross-reactive rabbit anti-CD4 antibody in flow cytometry, is presented. In addition, the entire coding region of the hare CD4 gene (1380bp) coding for a polypeptide of 459 amino acids has been sequenced. Using generalized least squares fitting by maximum likelihood (GLS) test, significantly (p=0.0095) higher CD4+ T cell frequencies in males than in females and significantly (p=0.0001) higher frequencies for leverets (younger than 2 months of age) than for subadult and adult (older than 7 months of age) individuals were detected. No significant age influence, however, was found for subadult and adult hares. The study is particularly meant to provide a first step in establishing a toolbox for the assessment of the immune response in this leporid species.
KW - Brown hare
KW - CD4
KW - Cross-reactivity
KW - Flow cytometry
KW - Lepus europaeus
KW - T lymphocytes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84906790965&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.vetimm.2014.06.001
DO - 10.1016/j.vetimm.2014.06.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 25042071
AN - SCOPUS:84906790965
SN - 0165-2427
VL - 161
SP - 108
EP - 115
JO - Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology
JF - Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology
IS - 1-2
ER -