Quantificação de mRNA de genes relacionados à resposta imune em bovinos infectados com endoparasitos do gênero Haemonchus spp
Abstract
Brazilian livestock production presents great impact for the national agriculture,
possessing the largest bovine commercial herd of the world. However, the
productivity is low and gastrintestinal diseases caused by Haemonchus spp are one
of the major constraints to the production. It is known that those parasites are
responsible for many immunological responses in the host. Cytokine polarization
Th1/Th2 has been studied to understand the infections caused by nematodes.
However, the studies that try to understand immune response of cattle with
Haemonchus spp are still scarce. The goal of this work was to verify differences in
the mRNA abundance of genes involved in immune response of calves of Nelore
breed (Bos indicus) submitted to the first infection with Haemonchus spp, relating
these differences to patterns of cellular infiltrate. Genes were evaluated by real time
PCR and relative quantification was made by the software Relative Expression
Software Tool. Results showed up-regulation of the interleukins IL-4 (p≤0.05) and IL-
13 (p≤0.05) in the lymph node of challenged animals. No significant differences (p >
0.05) were found in mRNA abundance for the genes analyzed in abomasum. There
were no significant differences for mast cells and eosinophil counts in abomasal
tissue among analyzed groups. From the results, it can be concluded that for the
short infection time, there was increased polarization of Th2 in lymph node, but it was not seen in abomasal tissue.