Effect of maternal restraint stress during gestation on temporal lipopolysaccharide-induced neuroendocrine and immune responses of progeny

Abstract

The impact of gestational dam restraint stress on progeny immune and neuroendocrine temporal hormone responses to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge was assessed. Maternal stress (5-min snout snare restraint stress during d 84 to 112 of gestation) increased (P < 0.05) the magnitude of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-6, epinephrine (E), norepinephrine (NE) and serum amyloid A (SAA) production following LPS infusion in the offspring. Moreover, these effects appear to be dependent on gender for TNF-α, E, EPI and cortisol production. However, maternal stress did not affect (P > 0.05) the normalization of proinflammatory cytokines or neuroendocrine hormones produced following LPS. Collectively, these results indicate that maternal stress impacts aspects of the proinflammatory cytokine and stress hormone response in their progeny following LPS dosing of the offspring. This response is potentially responsible in part for the resultant changes to SAA production. As several of the changes observed here are dependent on pig gender, these results are also the first evidence that inherent epigenetic factors coupled with maternal stress impacts the cumulative response to stress and LPS in young pigs.

The cortisol response to ACTH in pigs, heritability and influence of corticosteroid-binding globulin

“…Cooper et al, 2009) but their biological mechanisms have not been thoroughly investigated. It is worth noting, however, that several authors have shown that the HPA axis activity was shaped by prenatal influences in a sex-specific manner (Kanitz et al, 2006;Kranendonck et al, 2008;Collier et al, 2011;Óvilo et al, 2014).…”

Effects of inadequate maternal dietary protein:carbohydrate ratios during pregnancy on offspring immunity in pigs

“…From previous research in pigs it is known that prenatal stress may also alter physiological responsiveness of offspring to an immune stimulation with LPS. De Groot et al [12] suggested that the non-specific inflammatory response to an LPS challenge increased in piglets from sows treated with cortisol during pregnancy, and it was recently shown that maternal restraint stress during gestation in pigs enhanced the magnitude of the TNF-α and IL-6 responses to LPS in the offspring [13]. In our study, the increased inflammatory cytokine responses in piglets exposed to inadequate maternal protein-to-carbohydrate levels in utero confirm these results and support the hypothesis that maternal stress or malnutrition during pregnancy can influence aspects of immune responses in the offspring to challenges.…”

“…Across species, including laboratory animals, non-human primates, and humans, reduced birth weight is a major outcome of disturbances during gestation [3] that may be associated with altered activity of the neuroendocrine system [4] and modified immune function in offspring [5]. Also in domestic pigs, prenatally stressed offspring displayed altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulation [6,7], suppressed humoral and cellular immune responses [8,9], increased cortisol levels after social mixing [10,11] and stronger fever and cytokine responses to an inflammatory stimulus [12,13]. Inadequate maternal dietary protein and/or carbohydrate levels during pregnancy in pigs have been shown to retard intrauterine growth resulting in low body weight at birth, and to affect body composition and properties of skeletal muscle and adipose tissue of the offspring [14-16].…”

Mechanism of Earthquake Simulation as a Prenatal Stressor Retarding Rat Offspring Development and Chinese Medicine Correcting the Retardation: Hormones and Gene-Expression Alteration

“…Coussons-Read et al [49] reported that stress-related neural immune interactions may contribute to pregnancy complications and poor outcome. Collier et al [50] found that PS changed typical proinflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor (TNF)- α , and interleukin (IL)-6. As mentioned above, JKSQW recovered the dysfunction of kidney due to fear from earthquake, which could be supported by gene profile experiment outcome.…”