The innate immune response may be important for surviving plague in wild Gunnison's prairie dogs
| Autor: | Megan M Shuey, Roger Van Andel, Kacy R. Cobble, Jeffrey T. Foster, Nathan E. Stone, Michael VerSteeg, William E. Van Pelt, Jennifer Cordova, Stephen M. Beckstrom-Sternberg, Jeff Corcoran, Roxanne Nottingham, Tonie E. Rocke, Susan R. Smith, Judy L. Williamson, James S. Beckstrom-Sternberg, Paul Keim, Joseph D. Busch, Julia Rodriguez-Ramos, James M. Schupp, David M. Wagner, Judy Lee |
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| Rok vydání: | 2014 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Plague Ecology biology Outbreak Sciuridae Prairie dog biology.organism_classification medicine.disease Bubonic plague Antibodies Bacterial Immunity Innate Microbiology Cynomys ludovicianus Immune system Yersinia pestis Cynomys gunnisoni Immunity biology.animal Immunology medicine Animals Female Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics |
| Zdroj: | Journal of wildlife diseases. 49(4) |
| ISSN: | 1943-3700 |
| Popis: | Prairie dogs (Cynomys spp.) are highly susceptible to Yersinia pestis, with ≥99% mortality reported from multiple studies of plague epizootics. A colony of Gunnison's prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni) in the Aubrey Valley (AV) of northern Arizona appears to have survived several regional epizootics of plague, whereas nearby colonies have been severely affected by Y. pestis. To examine potential mechanisms accounting for survival in the AV colony, we conducted a laboratory Y. pestis challenge experiment on 60 wild-caught prairie dogs from AV and from a nearby, large colony with frequent past outbreaks of plague, Espee (n = 30 per colony). Test animals were challenged subcutaneously with the fully virulent Y. pestis strain CO92 at three doses: 50, 5,000, and 50,000 colony-forming units (cfu); this range is lethal in black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). Contrary to our expectations, only 40% of the animals died. Although mortality trended higher in the Espee colony (50%) compared with AV (30%), the differences among infectious doses were not statistically significant. Only 39% of the survivors developed moderate to high antibody levels to Y. pestis, indicating that mechanisms other than humoral immunity are important in resistance to plague. The ratio of neutrophils to lymphocytes was not correlated with plague survival in this study. However, several immune proteins with roles in innate immunity (VCAM-1, CXCL-1, and vWF) were upregulated during plague infection and warrant further inquiry into their role for protection against this disease. These results suggest plague resistance exists in wild populations of the Gunnison's prairie dog and provide important directions for future studies. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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