Siopes T D, Underwood H A
Department of Poultry Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7608, USA.
Gen Comp Endocrinol. 2008 Sep 15;158(3):245-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2008.07.008. Epub 2008 Aug 5.
Experiments were conducted to determine if diurnal variations occur in the cellular and humoral immune responses of sexually mature, male Japanese quail and if this diurnal variation is mediated by the daily rhythm of melatonin. In Experiment 1, quail were exposed to LD 12:12 light-dark cycles and immune responses were measured in response to a single antigenic challenge given to different groups every 4h over a 24h period. Diurnal changes occurred in both the cellular and humoral immune responses. The cellular response was higher during the light phase than during the dark phase whereas the opposite was true for the humoral immune response. Experiment 2 was designed to determine if melatonin mediated these diurnal immune responses. Quail were maintained in continuous light (LL) to suppress endogenous melatonin production and half of them were given melatonin in the drinking water for 12h each day for 2 weeks. Contrary to control quail, significant daily variations occurred in both the humoral and cellular immune responses of birds given melatonin. As in Experiment 1, the cellular and humoral immune responses were out of phase with one another, with the humoral response being maximal when melatonin was present. We may conclude that there exists a melatonin dependent diurnal variation in both cellular and humoral immune responses of quail. The responses were inverse to one another during the daily light-dark cycle with the cellular response being maximal during the daily light period and the humoral response being maximal during the daily dark period.
开展实验以确定性成熟的雄性日本鹌鹑的细胞免疫和体液免疫反应是否存在昼夜变化，以及这种昼夜变化是否由褪黑素的每日节律介导。在实验1中，鹌鹑暴露于12小时光照-12小时黑暗的光暗循环中，在24小时内每隔4小时对不同组给予单一抗原刺激，并测量免疫反应。细胞免疫和体液免疫反应均出现昼夜变化。细胞反应在光照阶段高于黑暗阶段，而体液免疫反应则相反。实验2旨在确定褪黑素是否介导了这些昼夜免疫反应。鹌鹑饲养在持续光照（LL）条件下以抑制内源性褪黑素的产生，其中一半鹌鹑每天在饮水中添加褪黑素12小时，持续2周。与对照鹌鹑相反，给予褪黑素的鸟类的体液免疫和细胞免疫反应均出现显著的每日变化。与实验1一样，细胞免疫和体液免疫反应彼此不同步，当存在褪黑素时体液反应最大。我们可以得出结论，鹌鹑的细胞免疫和体液免疫反应均存在依赖于褪黑素的昼夜变化。在每日的光暗循环中，这些反应彼此相反，细胞反应在每日光照期最大，体液反应在每日黑暗期最大。
