Fetal alcohol exposure augments the blunting of tumor necrosis factor production in vitro resulting from in vivo priming with lipopolysaccharide in young adult male but not female rats

Francesco Chiappelli, Michelle A. Kung, Delia L. Tio, Susan H. Tritt, Raz Yirmiya, Anna N. Taylor*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

We previously reported altered responses of thymocytes and splenocytes to mitogen stimulation in fetal alcohol-exposed (FAE) male Sprague-Dawley rats. We also reported enhanced neuroendocrine responses to stressful stimuli in these animals. The experiments we describe herein aimed at testing whether young adult FAE rats manifest a notable dysregulation in the neuroendocrine- immune response to pathogen administration. We tested the effect of in vivo priming of the animal with a low dose of endotoxin [lipopolysaccharide (LPS), 5 μg/kg], considered to be suboptimal from the perspective of mounting detectable levels of circulating monokines several hours after administration, upon the production of immunoreactive tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) in response to a further in vitro challenge of peripheral blood mononuclear cells with 2.5 μg/ml of LPS 90 rain after priming. We show that the response to the LPS pathogen in vitro after priming is significantly blunted (p < 0.01) in male rats exposed prenatally to alcohol, compared with control male animals. FAE female rats and FAE ovariectomized female rats do not show significant differences in the priming response, compared with control animals. We also show that there is no correspondence between plasma corticosterone levels and TNF-α production after priming in any of the groups tested.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1542-1546
Number of pages5
JournalAlcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research
Volume21
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 1997

Keywords

  • Fetal Alcohol Exposure
  • Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)
  • Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs)
  • Primed PBMCs
  • Tumor Necrosis Factor- α

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