Responsiveness of fecal immunoglobulin A to HPA-axis activation limits its use for mucosal immunity assessment.

Autor: Behringer V; Endocrinology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany., Müller-Klein N; Institute for Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.; Research Group Social Evolution in Primates, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany., Strube C; Institute for Parasitology, Centre for Infection Medicine, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hanover, Germany., Schülke O; Research Group Social Evolution in Primates, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany.; Department of Behavioral Ecology, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.; Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany., Heistermann M; Endocrinology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany., Ostner J; Research Group Social Evolution in Primates, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany.; Department of Behavioral Ecology, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.; Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: American journal of primatology [Am J Primatol] 2021 Dec; Vol. 83 (12), pp. e23329. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Sep 23.
DOI: 10.1002/ajp.23329
Abstrakt: The assessment of mucosal immunity as a component of animal health is an important aspect for the understanding of variation in host immunity, and its tradeoff against other life-history traits. We investigated immunoglobulin A (IgA), the major type of antibody associated with mucosal immunity, in relation to changes in parasitic burden following anthelminthic treatment in noninvasively collected fecal samples in a semi-free ranging group of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus). We measured IgA in 340 fecal samples of fourteen females and nine males. As IgA has been found to be responsive to stressors, we also related fecal IgA (fIgA) levels to fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (fGCM) measured in the same samples as part of a previous study. We found a high variability within and between individual fIgA levels over time. Running generalized additive mixed models, we found that fIgA levels were higher in males than in females, but did not change in response to the anthelmintic treatment and the resulting reduction in worm burden. Instead, fIgA level changes were significantly correlated to changes in fGCM levels. Our findings indicate that due to the strong responsiveness of fIgA to HPA-axis activity, the measurement of fIgA may have certain limitations with respect to reflecting gastrointestinal parasitic burden. Moreover, the responsiveness of fIgA to stressors interferes with the interpretation of IgA levels in fecal samples as a measure of mucosal immunity, at least in our study population of the Barbary macaques.
(© 2021 The Authors. American Journal of Primatology Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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