RT Journal Article
T1 Relationships between immune gene expression and circulating cytokine levels in wild house mice
A1 Young, Stuart
A1 Fenn, Jonathan
A1 Arriero Higueras, Elena
A1 Lowe, Ann
A1 Poulin, Benoit
A1 MacColl, Andrew D.C.
A1 Bradley, Janette E.
AB Quantitative PCR (qPCR) has been commonly used to measure gene expression ina number of research contexts, but the measured RNA concentrations do not al-ways represent the concentrations of active proteins which they encode. This canbe due to transcriptional regulation or post-translational modifications, or localiza-tion of immune environments, as can occur during infection. However, in studiesusing free-living non-model species, such as in ecoimmunological research, qPCRmay be the only available option to measure a parameter of interest, and so under-standing the quantitative link between gene expression and associated effectorprotein levels is vital. Here, we use qPCR to measure concentrations of RNA from mesenteric lymphnode (MLN) and spleen tissue, and multiplex ELISA of blood serum to measurecirculating cytokine concentrations in a wild population of a model species, Musmusculus domesticus. Few significant correlations were found between gene expression levels and cir-culating cytokines of the same immune genes or proteins, or related functionalgroups. Where significant correlations were observed, these were most fre-quently within the measured tissue (i.e., the expression levels of genes measuredfrom spleen tissue were more likely to correlate with each other rather than withgenes measured from MLN tissue, or with cytokine concentrations measuredfrom blood). Potential reasons for discrepancies between measures including differences indecay rates and transcriptional regulation networks are discussed. We highlightthe relative usefulness of different measures under different research questionsand consider what might be inferred from immune assays.
PB John Wiley & Sons
SN 2045-7758
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/108266
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/108266
LA eng
NO Young, Stuart, et al. «Relationships between Immune Gene Expression and Circulating Cytokine Levels in Wild House Mice». Ecology and Evolution, vol. 10, n.o 24, diciembre de 2020, pp. 13860-71. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6976.
NO Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
DS Docta Complutense
RD 18 abr 2025