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Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads

The effects of age on performance of life-history traits are diverse, but a common outcome is senescence, an irreversible deterioration of physical and physiological capabilities of older individuals. Immune response is potentially bound to senescence. However, little is known about immune response...

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Autores principales: Zamora-Camacho, Francisco Javier, Comas, Mar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304268/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30595980
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6104
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author Zamora-Camacho, Francisco Javier
Comas, Mar
author_facet Zamora-Camacho, Francisco Javier
Comas, Mar
author_sort Zamora-Camacho, Francisco Javier
collection PubMed
description The effects of age on performance of life-history traits are diverse, but a common outcome is senescence, an irreversible deterioration of physical and physiological capabilities of older individuals. Immune response is potentially bound to senescence. However, little is known about immune response ageing in amphibians. In this work, we test the hypothesis that amphibian early immune response is reduced in older individuals. To this end, we captured adult natterjack toads (Epidalea calamita) and inoculated them with phytohemagglutinin, an innocuous protein that triggers a skin-swelling immune response whose magnitude is directly proportional to the ability of the individual to mount an immune response. We measured early swelling immune response (corresponding to an innate-response stage) hourly, for six hours, and we calculated the area under the curve (AUC) for each individual’s time series, as a measure of immune response magnitude incorporating time. We estimated toad age by means of phalanx skeletochronology. Swelling and AUC decreased with age. Therefore, in accordance with our predictions, early immune response seems subject to senescence in these toads. Reduced ability to get over infections due to senescence of immune respose might be—together with a worse functioning of other organs and systems—among the causes of lower survival of older specimens.
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spelling pubmed-63042682018-12-28 Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads Zamora-Camacho, Francisco Javier Comas, Mar PeerJ Developmental Biology The effects of age on performance of life-history traits are diverse, but a common outcome is senescence, an irreversible deterioration of physical and physiological capabilities of older individuals. Immune response is potentially bound to senescence. However, little is known about immune response ageing in amphibians. In this work, we test the hypothesis that amphibian early immune response is reduced in older individuals. To this end, we captured adult natterjack toads (Epidalea calamita) and inoculated them with phytohemagglutinin, an innocuous protein that triggers a skin-swelling immune response whose magnitude is directly proportional to the ability of the individual to mount an immune response. We measured early swelling immune response (corresponding to an innate-response stage) hourly, for six hours, and we calculated the area under the curve (AUC) for each individual’s time series, as a measure of immune response magnitude incorporating time. We estimated toad age by means of phalanx skeletochronology. Swelling and AUC decreased with age. Therefore, in accordance with our predictions, early immune response seems subject to senescence in these toads. Reduced ability to get over infections due to senescence of immune respose might be—together with a worse functioning of other organs and systems—among the causes of lower survival of older specimens. PeerJ Inc. 2018-12-20 /pmc/articles/PMC6304268/ /pubmed/30595980 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6104 Text en ©2018 Zamora-Camacho and Comas http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Developmental Biology
Zamora-Camacho, Francisco Javier
Comas, Mar
Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads
title Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads
title_full Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads
title_fullStr Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads
title_full_unstemmed Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads
title_short Early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads
title_sort early swelling response to phytohemagglutinin is lower in older toads
topic Developmental Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304268/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30595980
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6104
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