Stress, either physical or psychological, can have a dramatic impact on the immune system. Little progress, however, has been made in understanding stress-induced immune suppression. We report here that mice subjected to chronic 12-hour daily physical restraint for two days significantly increased the expression of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). Interestingly, TLR4-deficient mice are resistant to stress-induced lymphocyte reduction. In addition, restraint stress caused dramatic decrease in T help 1 (Th1) cytokine IFN-γ and IL-2 levels but increase in Th2 cytokine IL-4 in wild type mice. Moreover, the restraint stress significantly inhibits changes of Th1 and Th2 cytokines in TLR4-deficient mice compared with the wild type mice. Therefore, stress modulates the immune system through a TLR4-dependent mechanism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etsu-works-18768 |
| Date | 01 February 2008 |
| Creators | Zhang, Yi, Woodruff, Michael, Zhang, Ying, Miao, Junying, Hanley, Gregory, Stuart, Charles, Zeng, Xiao, Prabhakar, Savita, Moorman, Jonathan, Zhao, Baoxiang, Yin, Deling |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | ETSU Faculty Works |
Page generated in 0.0084 seconds