Immune-challenged house wren broods differ in the relative strengths of their responses among different axes of the immune system

Single components of the immune system are widely used to assess immune function in free-living vertebrates. However, as different immunological components are triggered by different types of threats and may be regulated independently, there is little reason to assume that they should respond simila...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of evolutionary biology Vol. 21; no. 3; pp. 873 - 878
Main Authors FORSMAN, A.M, VOGEL, L.A, SAKALUK, S.K, GRINDSTAFF, J.L, THOMPSON, C.F
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Oxford, UK : Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2008
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects
Animals
Antibodies - blood
bactericidal activity
Birds
ecological immunology
Escherichia coli
house wren
humoral immunity
Immune system
Immunocompromised Host - immunology
Immunology
Passeriformes - immunology
phytohaemagglutinin
phytohemagglutinin
Phytohemagglutinins - immunology
Serologic Tests
Skin Tests
Troglodytes aedon
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Single components of the immune system are widely used to assess immune function in free-living vertebrates. However, as different immunological components are triggered by different types of threats and may be regulated independently, there is little reason to assume that they should respond similarly if challenged. We investigated whether three commonly assayed immune responses, cutaneous immune activity (phytohaemagglutinin assay), antibody response (tetanus toxoid immunization), and plasma bactericidal activity (Escherichia coli killing) are positively related in nestling house wrens (Troglodytes aedon). Multivariate analysis revealed significant differences in overall immune responsiveness among broods (i.e. nests), primarily attributable to differences in plasma bactericidal activity. Among broods, humoral immune response was negatively related to cutaneous immune activity and positively related to plasma bactericidal activity. We found no significant relationships among these measures of immunity among individual nestlings within broods. Our results suggest that different broods (i.e. families) invest differentially in the various branches of the immune system. Further study is needed to characterize the roles of maternal, genetic and environmental effects on the expression of this physiological bias.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01503.x
Present address: Department of Zoology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA.
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1010-061X
1420-9101
DOI:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01503.x