Stochastic Food Deprivation has no Effect on Cellular Immunity in the Striped Field Mouse (Apodemus agrarius)

De-Li Xu,Liu-Hong Wang,Shan-Shan Wang,Cong-Min Yao,Shi-Jia Bi,Xiao-Kai Hu,Ying-Jie Lu,Dan Li,Kai-Yue Zhang,Qi Guo

doi:10.5539/ijb.v8n2p58

Abstract

<p class="1Body">Immune system protects animals from the attack of pathogens, which is crucial to their survival and fitness. Small mammals in the temperate area are confronted with unpredictable food shortage frequently due to the fluctuation of food resources seasonally. Our previous research has shown that stochastic food deprivation (FD) increases T cell-mediated immunity in Kunming mice. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that stochastic food deprivation would also increase T cell-mediated immunity in the striped field mouse. Nine female striped field mouse were randomly divided into the Fed (n = 5) and FD (n = 4) groups, in which the latter were subjected to stochastic FD regime. Contrary to our expectation, stochastic food deprivation had no significant effect on phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) response indicative of T cell-mediated immunity in striped field mouse compared with the fed controls. Moreover, body mass, body fat mass, wet thymus and spleen mass, white blood cells and blood glucose levels did not differ between the Fed and FD groups. Taken together, the striped field mouse could maintain stable cellular immunity in face of unpredictable food shortage.</p>

Highlights

Immune function, which protects animals from the attack of pathogens, is an important factor to determine their survival and fitness (Sheldon & Verhulst, 1996; Owens & Wilson, 1999)
Nine female striped field mouse were randomly divided into the fed ad libitum (Fed) (n = 5) and food deprivation (FD) (n = 4) groups, in which the latter were subjected to stochastic FD regime
Stochastic food deprivation had no significant effect on phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) response indicative of T cell-mediated immunity in striped field mouse compared with the fed controls

Summary

Introduction

Immune function, which protects animals from the attack of pathogens, is an important factor to determine their survival and fitness (Sheldon & Verhulst, 1996; Owens & Wilson, 1999). Some researchers found that acute food deprivation had suppressive effect on immune function. Twoday food deprivation inhibited T-cell immune response (Lord et al, 1998) and increased susceptibility to endotoxic shock in mice (Faggioni et al, 2000). Delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) indicative of T-cell immune response were suppressed in starved rats or mice in contrast with the fed animals (Nohr et al, 1985; Nakamura et al, 2001, 2004). Our previous research has shown that T-cell mediated immunity was suppressed after 3-day food deprivation in wild Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) (Xu & Wang, 2010; Xu & Wang, 2015). Two or three days of food deprivation increased the resistance to the intracellular pathogen Listeria monocytogenes in mice (Wing & Young, 1980). More researches are needed to clarify these different results in more species

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