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Updated: Jun 23, 2025

Operating and Biocontainment Procedures of a Facility for Laboratory Mice with a Natural Microbiome: Immunophenotyping Procedure
Published on: December 13, 2024
Genetic and environmental interactions contribute to immune variation in rewilded mice
Oyebola Oyesola1, Alexander E Downie2,3, Nina Howard4
1Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. oyebola.oyesola@nih.gov.
Abstract:
The relative and synergistic contributions of genetics and environment to interindividual immune response variation remain unclear, despite implications in evolutionary biology and medicine. Here we quantify interactive effects of genotype and environment on immune traits by investigating C57BL/6, 129S1 and PWK/PhJ inbred mice, rewilded in an outdoor enclosure and infected with the parasite Trichuris muris. Whereas cellular composition was shaped by interactions between genotype and environment, cytokine response heterogeneity including IFNγ concentrations was primarily driven by genotype with consequence on worm burden. In addition, we show that other traits, such as expression of CD44, were explained mostly by genetics on T cells, whereas expression of CD44 on B cells was explained more by environment across all strains. Notably, genetic differences under laboratory conditions were decreased following rewilding. These results indicate that nonheritable influences interact with genetic factors to shape immune variation and parasite burden.
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