The immune system response to antigen in cold- and warm-adapted rats

✍ Scribed by T.V. Kozyreva; L.S. Eliseeva

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 285 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0306-4565
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2004.08.076

✦ Synopsis

In rat experiments, it was shown that long-term adaptation to cold modified the response pattern of the immune system to antigen stimulus by variously changing the different components of the response. There was a considerable decrease in the number of antigen-binding cells in spleen and peritoneal exudate and also a marked decrease in general antibodies in blood. Conversely, the number of antibody-forming cells in spleen increased twofold. The shift in the thermal conditions after immunization caused changes in the immune response. After the placement of cold-adapted animals to the warm environments the number of antigen binds and antibody-forming cells in spleen, as well as hemagglutinin titers in serum normalized, became indistinguishable from those in the warm-adapted control group. The placement from warm to cold after immunization of warm-adapted rats also produced considerable shifts in parameters of the immune response. However, these shifts were not entirely consistent with those observed for long-term adapted to cold. The obtained data evidence that the thermal factor of the environment is of major importance to the function of immunocompetent cells.