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Ballester M, Jové-Juncà T, Pascual A, López-Serrano S, Crespo-Piazuelo D, Hernández-Banqué C, González-Rodríguez O, Ramayo-Caldas Y, Quintanilla R. Genetic architecture of innate and adaptive immune cells in pigs. Front Immunol 2023; 14:1058346. [PMID: 36814923 PMCID: PMC9939681 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1058346] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Accepted: 01/16/2023] [Indexed: 02/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Pig industry is facing new challenges that make necessary to reorient breeding programs to produce more robust and resilient pig populations. The aim of the present work was to study the genetic determinism of lymphocyte subpopulations in the peripheral blood of pigs and identify genomic regions and biomarkers associated to them. For this purpose, we stained peripheral blood mononuclear cells to measure ten immune-cell-related traits including the relative abundance of different populations of lymphocytes, the proportions of CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells, and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ T cells from 391 healthy Duroc piglets aged 8 weeks. Medium to high heritabilities were observed for the ten immune-cell-related traits and significant genetic correlations were obtained between the proportion of some lymphocytes populations. A genome-wide association study pointed out 32 SNPs located at four chromosomal regions on pig chromosomes SSC3, SSC5, SSC8, and SSCX as significantly associated to T-helper cells, memory T-helper cells and γδ T cells. Several genes previously identified in human association studies for the same or related traits were located in the associated regions, and were proposed as candidate genes to explain the variation of T cell populations such as CD4, CD8A, CD8B, KLRC2, RMND5A and VPS24. The transcriptome analysis of whole blood samples from animals with extreme proportions of γδ T, T-helper and memory T-helper cells identified differentially expressed genes (CAPG, TCF7L1, KLRD1 and CD4) located into the associated regions. In addition, differentially expressed genes specific of different T cells subpopulations were identified such as SOX13 and WC1 genes for γδ T cells. Our results enhance the knowledge about the genetic control of lymphocyte traits that could be considered to optimize the induction of immune responses to vaccines against pathogens. Furthermore, they open the possibility of applying effective selection programs for improving immunocompetence in pigs and support the use of the pig as a very reliable human biomedical model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Ballester
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
| | - Teodor Jové-Juncà
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
| | - Afra Pascual
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
| | - Sergi López-Serrano
- Unitat mixta d'Investigació IRTA-UAB en Sanitat Animal, Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain.,Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Programa de Sanitat Animal, Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain
| | - Daniel Crespo-Piazuelo
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
| | - Carles Hernández-Banqué
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
| | - Olga González-Rodríguez
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
| | - Yuliaxis Ramayo-Caldas
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
| | - Raquel Quintanilla
- Animal Breeding and Genetics Program, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain
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Mechanisms of autoimmune pathology in post-COVID syndrome. ACTA BIOMEDICA SCIENTIFICA 2022. [DOI: 10.29413/abs.2022-7.5-1.8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
One of the delayed consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection is post-acute COVID-19 – polymorphic disorders of various organ systems that affect COVID-19 convalescents and persist for more than four weeks after an acute infection. Due to the infectious nature of the COVID-19, we would like to pay special attention to complications from the immune system, especially concomitant and new-onset autoimmune pathology. This review analyzes the current state of the issue of post-acute COVID-19 complications, discusses the molecular features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the mechanisms underlying the impaired immune response during acute COVID-19 infection and the occurrence of autoimmune and autoinflammatory conditions during convalescence. Particular attention is paid to the molecular mimicry of antigenic determinants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which are structurally similar to the epitopes of human autoantigens. The current data on post-acute COVID-19 autoimmune complications from humoral immunity and the endocrine system, as well as reproductive disorders faced by male patients are presented. For the first time, we hypothesize a role of the structural homology of the human SOX13 autoantigen (HMG box factor SOX13) associated with diabetes mellitus and SARS-CoV-2 envelope (E) protein in the development of the post-acute COVID-19 autoimmune pathologies. Due to the structural similarity of the two proteins and the overlap of their immunogenic regions, we suggest that the increased risk of developing diabetes mellitus and reproductive disorders in men after suffering from COVID-19 may be associated with immunological cross-reactivity.
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Gillespie A, Loonie K, Zhang F, Prendergast J, Connelley T, Baldwin CL. Next generation sequencing of transcribed genes in ruminant γδ T cell populations. Mol Immunol 2022; 149:129-142. [PMID: 35810664 DOI: 10.1016/j.molimm.2022.06.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2022] [Revised: 06/20/2022] [Accepted: 06/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Bovine γδ T cells are distinguished by expression of WC1, hybrid pattern recognition receptors and co-receptors to the T cell receptor (TCR), or their absence. WC1 molecules bind pathogens and the ability of γδ T cells to respond to pathogens largely correlates with their expression of particular WC1 genes. Following activation, the TCR and WC1 molecules co-localize and knocking down WC1 abrogates the ability of WC1-expressing γδ T cells to respond to antigen. It is known that these two major populations, WC1+ and WC1-, differ in their TCR gene expression and previous studies showed other differences using semi-quantitative RT-PCR and serial analysis of gene expression. Differences in genes expressed would influence the functional outcome when WC1+ vs. WC1- γδ T cells respond to pathogens. To identify unique aspects of their transcriptome, here we performed RNA-Seq of flow cytometrically sorted bovine WC1+ and WC1- γδ T cells and compared them to all mononuclear cells in blood. The greatest differences in gene expression were found between γδ T cells and other mononuclear cells and included those involved in lymphocyte activation and effector processes. Only minor differences occurred between ex vivo WC1+ vs. WC1- γδ T cells with those gene products being involved in cell adhesion and chemotaxis. After culturing cells from primed animals with Leptospira antigens major difference in the transcriptome was evident, with over 600 genes significantly differentially expressed including those focused on cytokine signaling. Unexpectedly, antigen-responding and non-responding populations of WC1+ γδ T cells had few differences in their transcriptomes outside of cytotoxic factors although they had more WC1-1, WC1-2 and WC1-13 transcripts. Through differential gene expression we were able to define properties of ex vivo and stimulated WC1+ cells which will be useful in understanding their functional biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandria Gillespie
- Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
| | - Kathleen Loonie
- Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
| | - Fengqiu Zhang
- Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
| | | | | | - Cynthia L Baldwin
- Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA; Program in Molecular & Cellular Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA.
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