Induction and characterization of endotoxin tolerance in equine peripheral blood mononuclear cells in vitro

TR Number

Date

2010-06-23

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Virginia Tech

Abstract

Endotoxemia is responsible for severe illness in horses. Individuals can become unresponsive to the endotoxin molecule after an initial exposure; this phenomenon has been called developing a state of "endotoxin tolerance" (ET). ET has been induced in horses in vivo; however, cytokine expression associated with ET has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a method for inducing ET in equine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in vitro, and to describe the cytokine profile which is associated with the ET.

Blood was collected from 6 healthy horses and PBMCs were isolated. ET was induced by culturing cells with three concentrations of endotoxin given to induce ET, and evaluated after a second dose of endotoxin given to challenge the cells. The relative mRNA expression of IL-10 and IL-12 was measured by use of quantitative PCR.

ET was induced in all cells (n=6) exposed to the 2-step endotoxin challenge. In PBMCs treated with 1.0 ng/ml of endotoxin followed by challenge with 10 ng/ml of endotoxin, the relative mRNA expression of IL-10 in tolerized cells was not different from positive control cells. In contrast, the relative mRNA expression of IL-12 in tolerized cells was decreased by 15-fold after the second endotoxin challenge compared with positive control cells.

This experiment demonstrated a reliable method for the ex vivo induction of ET in equine PBMCs. A marked suppression of IL-12 production is associated with ET. The production of IL-10 was not altered in ET in our model.

Description

Keywords

Endotoxin, endotoxin tolerance, interleukin-12, interleukin-10, equine

Citation

Collections