TMT-based quantitative proteomic analysis reveals the spleen regulatory network of dexamethasone-induced immune...

Stress-induced immunosuppression is one of the most widespread problems in the poultry industry. Understanding the molecular regulatory mechanism of immunosuppression induced by stress in the chicken spleen would provide a scientific foundation for the prevention of stress reactions and antistress molecular breeding in poultry. To assess the protein expression profile of spleen tissue in a stress-included immunosuppression model, we performed a TMT-based proteomic analysis of chicken spleen tissue in a Dex-induced immunosuppression model (group C) and a control group (group A). We identified 590 differentially abundant proteins (DAPs) in chicken spleen tissue. These DAPs were significantly enriched in the following functional categories: ECM-receptor interaction, DNA replication, p53 signaling pathway, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and NF-kappa B signaling pathway. Integrative analysis of the proteome and our previous transcriptome data revealed 62 DAPs showing correlations with the expression of their encoding mRNAs. Complementary proteome- and transcriptome-level analyses revealed a complex molecular network of stress-included immunosuppression. DPP4 and ALDH1A3 were the most significantly upregulated DAPs. GBP and OASL were identified as important nodes in the network related to stress-induced immunosuppression. The candidate genes identified in this study may be useful for the marker-based breeding of new chicken varieties with reduced stress levels. SIGNIFICANCE: This study provides a large amount of new information about the spleen proteome of the Dex-induced immunosuppression in chicks, as well as the correlation of transcriptome and proteome. Analysis of this resource has enabled us to examine mechanism of protein and transcript diversification, which expands the understanding of the complexity of the mechanism of stress-induced immunosuppression.