Constitutive expression of ch-TLR 4, IL-1β and IFN-y in Aseel and Kadaknath chick peripheral blood mononuclear cells

Abstract

Immune system operates through innate and adaptive arm to fight against invading pathogens and confers protection to the host. Innate and adaptive arm differs in the two main cardinal attributes i.e., specificity and memory. Innate arm is non-specific arm devoid of memory while adaptive arm operates with specificity and have memory. Earlier innate arm of the immune system was viewed as of limited role and mainly concerned with initial containment of the invading pathogen before adaptive arm comes into play. However, both the arms work in highly coherent manner to thwart pathogenic attack. In the recent past, the role of components of innate arm in generation of adaptive immune response has been established more precisely. By virtue of their role as "Antigen Presenting Cells", innate cells present antigenic peptides to Th and Tc cells. Moreover, a good number of pro-inflammatory cytokines are also secreted that has profound effect on subsequent adaptive response. This improved understanding of underlying mechanism allows assessing basal constitutive expression of TLRs and other important immune markers as a novel way of evaluating general immune competence of the host. Aseel and Kadaknath, Indian native breeds of chicks are considered to be more immune competent than the commercial breeds. This study was designed to assess basal constitutive expression of ch-TLR 4, IL-1β and IFN-γ in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of Aseel and Kadaknath using real time PCR. PBMCs isolated from 21 days old Aseel chicks had 1.28, 1.59 and 2.38 times higher constitutive expression of ch-TLR4, IL-1β and IFN-γ, respectively than PBMCs isolated from Kadaknath. Thus, basal constitutive expression of these two innate markers was found to be relatively higher in PBMCs from Aseel than that of Kadaknath.