›› 2017, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (8): 1253-1260.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1004-1524.2017.08.05

• Animal Science • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Analysis of T lymphocytes in peripheral blood of piglets in different growth stages

ZOU Lu1, 2, ZHANG Jingyan2, ZHANG Kai2, WANG Lei2, ZHANG Kang2, WANG Xurong2, WANG Xuezhi2, YU Sijiu1, YANG Zhiqiang2, *, LI Jianxi2, *   

  1. 1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730050, China;
    2. Engineering & Technology Research Center of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine of Gansu Province, Lanzhou Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Science of CAAS , Lanzhou 730050, China;
  • Received:2016-12-30 Online:2017-08-20 Published:2017-09-06

Abstract: To establish healthy piglets of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets in clinical reference range, and analyze the level of immune system in different growth stages of piglets, the blood samples were collected on the 1st day, 7th day, 21st day and 35th day after weaning, respectively, and the mononuclear cells were isolated from the peripheral blood. Three color flow cytometry was used to detect the proportion of primary kinds of T lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and in CD3+ T lymphocyte subsets, then the ratio of CD4+ /CD8+ was calculated. The proportion of CD3+ T lymphocyte subsets for peripheral blood mononuclear cells in male and female piglets were gradually increased from (38.00±10.94)% to (55.43±12.30)% and from (38.17±15.39)% to (51.57±10.60)% , respectively with the increase of age. On the 1st day and 7th day after weaning, the CD3+ T lymphocyte ratio had no significant difference between male and female piglets (P>0.05). On the 21st day after weaning, the CD3+ T lymphocyte ratio showed significant increase in male piglets(P<0.05). On the 35th day, the percentage of CD3+ T cells showed a significant increase (P<0.05). With the increase of age, the proportion of CD4+ T lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of male and female piglets increased from (10.29±2.71)% to( 22.2±5.87)% and from (10.3±2.17)% to (23.4±6.84)%, respectively. The proportions of CD4+ T lymphocytes in male and female piglets were gradually increasing, and there was no significant difference between male and female piglets at different time points(P>0.05). The proportions of CD8+ T lymphocytes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells at the four time points were(23.80±6.67)%, (17.14±10.64)%, (25.46±12.32)%, (33.33±8.93)% in male piglets and (28.55±6.75)%, (23.62±11.51)%, (37.37±13.18)%, (38.31±15.66)% in female piglets. With the increase of age, the CD8+ T lymphocytes showed a trend of firstly decrease and then increase. The distribution of lymphocyte subsets in weaned piglets showed different changes with the increase of weaning time, and was influenced by gender. The combination of two different cell delineation methods could reflect more accurate changes of the number and proportion of lymphocyte subsets in piglets.

Key words: piglets, T lymphocyte subsets, flow cytometry, cell delineation

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