Ross P S, De Swart R L, Reijnders P J, Van Loveren H, Vos J G, Osterhaus A D
Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre, Pieterburen, The Netherlands.
Environ Health Perspect. 1995 Feb;103(2):162-7. doi: 10.1289/ehp.95103162.
Recent mass mortalities among several marine mammal populations have led to speculation about increased susceptibility to viral infections as a result of contaminant-induced immunosuppression. In a 2.5-year study, we fed herring from either the relatively uncontaminated Atlantic Ocean or the contaminated Baltic Sea to two groups of captive harbor seals and monitored immune function in the seals. Seals fed the contaminated fish were less able to mount a specific immunological response to ovalbumin, as measured by in vivo delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reactions and antibody responses. The skin reaction to this protein antigen was characterized by the appearance of mononuclear cells which peaked at 24 hr after intradermal administration, characteristic of DTH reactions in other animals studied. These DTH responses correlated well with in vitro tests of T-lymphocyte function, implicating this cell type in the reaction. Aryl-hydrocarbon (Ah) receptor-dependent toxic equivalent (TEQ) profiles in blubber biopsies taken from the seals implicated polychlorinated biphenyls rather than dioxins or furans in the observed immunosuppression. Marine mammal populations currently inhabiting polluted coastal environments in Europe and North America may therefore have an increased susceptibility to infections, and pollution may have played a role in recent virus-induced mass mortalities.
最近，几种海洋哺乳动物种群出现大规模死亡现象，引发了人们对于污染物导致免疫抑制从而增加病毒感染易感性的猜测。在一项为期2.5年的研究中，我们将来自相对未受污染的大西洋或受污染的波罗的海的鲱鱼喂给两组圈养的斑海豹，并监测海豹的免疫功能。通过体内迟发型超敏反应（DTH）和抗体反应来衡量，喂食受污染鱼类的海豹对卵清蛋白产生特异性免疫反应的能力较弱。对这种蛋白质抗原的皮肤反应以注射皮内24小时后出现的单核细胞为特征达到峰值，这是其他研究动物中DTH反应的特征。这些DTH反应与T淋巴细胞功能的体外测试结果高度相关，表明这种细胞类型参与了该反应。从海豹身上采集的脂肪活检中的芳烃（Ah）受体依赖性毒性当量（TEQ）谱表明，观察到的免疫抑制现象与多氯联苯有关，而非二恶英或呋喃。因此，目前栖息在欧洲和北美受污染沿海环境中的海洋哺乳动物种群可能对感染的易感性增加，污染可能在最近由病毒引起的大规模死亡事件中起到了作用。
