Ferreira Susana C M, Veiga Miguel M, Hofer Heribert, East Marion L, Czirják Gábor Á
Department of Ecological Dynamics Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin Germany.
Present address: Division of Computational Systems Biology Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science Vienna Austria.
Ecol Evol. 2021 May 7;11(12):7685-7699. doi: 10.1002/ece3.7602. eCollection 2021 Jun.
Host immune defenses are important components of host-parasite interactions that affect the outcome of infection and may have fitness consequences for hosts when increased allocation of resources to immune responses undermines other essential life processes. Research on host-parasite interactions in large free-ranging wild mammals is currently hampered by a lack of verified noninvasive assays. We successfully adapted existing assays to measure innate and adaptive immune responses produced by the gastrointestinal mucosa in spotted hyena () feces, including enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), to quantify fecal immunoglobulins (total IgA, total IgG) and total fecal O-linked oligosaccharides (mucin). We investigated the effect of infection load by an energetically costly hookworm (), parasite richness, host age, sex, year of sampling, and clan membership on immune responses and asked whether high investment in immune responses during early life affects longevity in individually known spotted hyenas in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Fecal concentrations of IgA, IgG, and mucin increased with egg load and were higher in juveniles than in adults. Females had higher mucin concentrations than males. Juvenile females had higher IgG concentrations than juvenile males, whereas adult females had lower IgG concentrations than adult males. High IgA concentrations during the first year of life were linked to reduced longevity after controlling for age at sampling and egg load. Our study demonstrates that the use of noninvasive methods can increase knowledge on the complex relationship between gastrointestinal parasites and host local immune responses in wild large mammals and reveal fitness-relevant effects of these responses.
宿主免疫防御是宿主 - 寄生虫相互作用的重要组成部分，它会影响感染的结果，并且当增加对免疫反应的资源分配损害其他重要生命过程时，可能会对宿主的适应性产生影响。目前，对大型自由放养野生哺乳动物宿主 - 寄生虫相互作用的研究因缺乏经过验证的非侵入性检测方法而受到阻碍。我们成功地调整了现有检测方法，以测量斑鬣狗粪便中胃肠道黏膜产生的先天性和适应性免疫反应，包括酶联免疫吸附测定（ELISA），用于量化粪便免疫球蛋白（总IgA、总IgG）和总粪便O - 连接寡糖（粘蛋白）。我们研究了一种能量消耗大的钩虫感染负荷、寄生虫丰富度、宿主年龄、性别、采样年份和氏族成员身份对免疫反应的影响，并询问在坦桑尼亚塞伦盖蒂国家公园中，个体已知的斑鬣狗在生命早期对免疫反应的高投入是否会影响其寿命。粪便中IgA、IgG和粘蛋白的浓度随钩虫卵负荷增加而升高，并且在幼年个体中高于成年个体。雌性的粘蛋白浓度高于雄性。幼年雌性的IgG浓度高于幼年雄性，而成年雌性的IgG浓度低于成年雄性。在控制了采样年龄和钩虫卵负荷后，生命第一年的高IgA浓度与寿命缩短有关。我们的研究表明，使用非侵入性方法可以增加对野生大型哺乳动物胃肠道寄生虫与宿主局部免疫反应之间复杂关系的了解，并揭示这些反应与适应性相关的影响。
