Gene expression analysis of porcine peripheral blood mononuclear cell in response to immune stimulation of Poly I:C

Polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (Poly I:C) is an analogue of natural double strand RNA (dsRNA), which can simulate the viral dsRNA and stimulate the immune response. In the present study, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated from piglets of Dapulian and Landrace with different disease resistance, and stimulated with 20 μg/mL Poly I:C for 24 hours in vitro culture. The expression of several cytokines (IL6, IL8, TNFα, IL10, IRF3, IFNα and IFNγ) and three pattern recognition receptors (TLR3, TLR4 and RIG1) was determined by qRT-PCR. The results showed that, most of the cytokines or receptors had obvious expression change compared with the control (without Poly I:C stimulation), especially the three cytokine genes IL6, IL8 and IL10, whose average expression change times were 20.71, 10.87 and 5.18, respectively. Expression comparison between breeds and among individuals of the same breed indicated that there was obvious difference not only between Dapulain and Landrace (Dapulain higher than Landrace) but also among the three individuals of the same breed. Our study simulated the infection of dsRNA to host cells using Poly I:C, and provided experimental foundation for further study on selecting the immune genes in response to Poly I:C stimulation and identifying the unique disease-resistance genes of Dapulian.