Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
J Evol Biol. 2009 Nov;22(11):2348-53. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01831.x. Epub 2009 Sep 29.
When exposed to parasites, hosts often mount energetically expensive immune responses, and this may alter resource allocation between competing life history traits including other components of the immune system. Here, we investigated whether a humoral immune challenge towards a vaccine reduces or enhances the cutaneous immune responses towards an injection of lipopolysaccharid (LPS, innate immunity) and phytohaemagglutinin (PHA, T-cell immunity) in nestling tawny owls in interaction with the degree of plumage melanin-based coloration. The humoral immune challenge enhanced the response to LPS similarly in differently coloured nestlings. In contrast, the same humoral immune challenge enhanced immune response to PHA in dark reddish melanic nestlings while reducing it in pale reddish melanic nestlings. Our results highlight that both antagonistic and synergistic interactions can take place among branches of immune system, and that the sign and magnitude of these interactions can vary with immune responses involved and the degree of melanin-based coloration.
当宿主暴露于寄生虫时，通常会产生高能量的免疫反应，这可能会改变资源在竞争生命史特征之间的分配，包括免疫系统的其他成分。在这里，我们研究了针对疫苗的体液免疫挑战是否会降低或增强幼鸟对脂多糖（LPS，先天免疫）和血球凝集素（PHA，T 细胞免疫）注射的皮肤免疫反应，同时考虑到羽毛黑色素着色的程度。体液免疫挑战在不同颜色的雏鸟中同样增强了对 LPS 的反应。相比之下，相同的体液免疫挑战增强了深红褐色黑色素雏鸟对 PHA 的免疫反应，而降低了浅红褐色黑色素雏鸟的免疫反应。我们的研究结果表明，免疫系统的分支之间既可以发生拮抗作用，也可以发生协同作用，而且这些相互作用的符号和幅度可能因涉及的免疫反应和黑色素着色程度而异。
