Tripathi Manish Kumar, Singh Ramesh
Department of Zoology, Udai Pratap Autonomous College, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
PLoS One. 2014 Aug 7;9(8):e104431. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104431. eCollection 2014.
Reptiles represent the crucial phylogenetic group as they were the ancestors of both birds and mammals hence very important to study. The objectives of the present study were to investigate the potential roles of testosterone in the innate immune responses and splenic lymphocyte proliferation in fresh water snake, Natrix piscator. Animals were mildly anesthetized and spleens were taken out to study the splenic macrophage phagocytosis, super oxide production and nitrite release using in vitro testosterone. Splenic lymphocytes were isolated by density gradient centrifugation and were studied for mitogen induced proliferation in presence of in vitro testosterone. Testosterone suppressed the phagocytosis and nitrite release in a concentration dependent manner. Biphasic suppressive effect of testosterone was observed in superoxide production as judged by reduction of nitroblue tetrazolium salt where salt reduction was suppressed at lower and higher concentrations of testosterone. Mitogen induced splenic lymphocyte proliferation was also suppressed by testosterone. By suppressing immune responses, testosterone may, therefore, act as a physiological mechanism regulating the relative amount of energy invested into either reproductive effort or immunocompetence.
爬行动物是关键的系统发育群体，因为它们是鸟类和哺乳动物的祖先，因此对其进行研究非常重要。本研究的目的是调查睾酮在淡水蛇渔游蛇（Natrix piscator）的先天免疫反应和脾脏淋巴细胞增殖中的潜在作用。对动物进行轻度麻醉后取出脾脏，使用体外睾酮研究脾脏巨噬细胞的吞噬作用、超氧化物产生和亚硝酸盐释放。通过密度梯度离心分离脾脏淋巴细胞，并研究其在体外睾酮存在下有丝分裂原诱导的增殖。睾酮以浓度依赖性方式抑制吞噬作用和亚硝酸盐释放。通过硝基蓝四氮唑盐还原判断，在超氧化物产生中观察到睾酮的双相抑制作用，在较低和较高浓度的睾酮下盐还原均受到抑制。睾酮也抑制有丝分裂原诱导的脾脏淋巴细胞增殖。因此，通过抑制免疫反应，睾酮可能作为一种生理机制，调节投入到生殖努力或免疫能力中的能量相对量。
