Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Mayor, Huechuraba, Santiago, Chile.
Departamento de Ciencias Ecológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol. 2021 Feb;335(2):239-249. doi: 10.1002/jez.2429. Epub 2020 Nov 12.
Environmental conditions experienced by developing animals have an impact on the development and maturity of the immune system. Specifically, the diet experienced during early development influences the maintenance and function of the immune system in young and adult animals. It is well known that exposure to low-protein diets during early development are related to an attenuation of immunocompetence in adulthood. While this functional linkage has been widely studied in altricial models' mammals, it has been little explored how the nutritional history modulates the immune function in precocial animals. We evaluated the effect of dietary protein consumed during early development on the immune function and the oxidative costs in the precocial Caviomorph rodent Octodon degus, or degu. We evaluated components of the acute phase response (APR) and oxidative parameters before and after immune challenge. We found that after the immune challenge, the juveniles on the low-protein dietary treatment exhibited an attenuation of body temperature but showed higher levels of lipid peroxidation than juvenile degus on the high-protein diet. We did not find a significant effect of the interaction between diet and immune challenge on body mass, levels of inflammatory proteins, nor in the total antioxidant capacity. Our results suggest that some components of the immune function and the oxidative status in the degu can be modulated by diet during development. However, the modulation would depend on the immune variables analyzed, and the characteristics of the immune system of precocial rodents.
动物发育过程中所经历的环境条件会影响免疫系统的发育和成熟。具体而言，早期发育过程中所经历的饮食会影响幼年期和成年期动物的免疫系统的维持和功能。众所周知，早期发育过程中接触低蛋白饮食与成年后免疫能力下降有关。虽然这种功能联系在早产儿哺乳动物中得到了广泛研究，但对于营养史如何调节早熟动物的免疫功能，研究甚少。我们评估了早期发育过程中所摄入的蛋白质饮食对早熟的 Caviomorph 啮齿动物豚鼠的免疫功能和氧化成本的影响。我们评估了急性相反应 (APR) 的组成部分和免疫挑战前后的氧化参数。我们发现，在免疫挑战后，低蛋白饮食处理的幼体表现出体温下降，但与高蛋白饮食的幼体相比，其脂质过氧化水平更高。我们没有发现饮食和免疫挑战之间的相互作用对体重、炎症蛋白水平或总抗氧化能力有显著影响。我们的结果表明，豚鼠的一些免疫功能和氧化状态成分可以通过发育过程中的饮食来调节。然而，这种调节将取决于所分析的免疫变量，以及早熟啮齿动物免疫系统的特征。
