Correlation of Immunomodulatory Cytokine Expression with Histopathological Changes and Viral Antigen in a Hamster Model of Equine Herpesvirus-9 Encephalitis

Hoda Abd-Ellatieff; Shehata Anwar; Osama Abas; Abdel-Rhman Abou-Rawash; Hiadeto Fukushi; Tokuma Yanai

doi:10.1016/j.jcpa.2020.07.007

Correlation of Immunomodulatory Cytokine Expression with Histopathological Changes and Viral Antigen in a Hamster Model of Equine Herpesvirus-9 Encephalitis

J Comp Pathol. 2020 Oct:180:46-54. doi: 10.1016/j.jcpa.2020.07.007. Epub 2020 Sep 15.

Authors

Hoda Abd-Ellatieff¹, Shehata Anwar², Osama Abas³, Abdel-Rhman Abou-Rawash¹, Hiadeto Fukushi⁴, Tokuma Yanai⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Damanhour University, El-Beheira, Egypt.
² Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt; Neuroscience Laboratory, CHU de Québec Research Centre, Department of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Laval University, Canada.
³ Department of Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
⁴ Laboratory of Veterinary Microbiology, Faculty of Applied Biological Sciences, Gifu University, Yanagido, Gifu, Japan.
⁵ Laboratory of Wildlife and Forensic Pathology, Biomedical Science Examination and Research Center, Okayama University of Science, Ehime, Japan. Electronic address: tokumayanai@gmail.com.

PMID: 33222873
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcpa.2020.07.007

Abstract

A group of hamsters (n = 25) was intranasally infected with equine herpesvirus-9 (EHV-9) and mRNA transcription levels of several proinflammatory (IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-6) and anti-inflammatory (IL-4, IL-10 and TGF-β) cytokines were investigated in brain tissue using RT-qPCR. These levels were correlated with the severity of sequential histopathological changes and intensity of immunohistochemical labelling of virus antigen in brain. Early and progressive upregulation of all the proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines investigated (P < 0.05) was correlated with increasing severity of encephalitis and viral antigen expression from 2 days post infection (dpi) with a peak at 4-5 dpi (P <0.05).

Keywords: RT-qPCR; cytokines; equine herpesvirus-9; meningoencephalitis.

MeSH terms

Animals
Antigens, Viral
Brain / virology
Cricetinae
Cytokines / immunology*
Disease Models, Animal
Encephalitis* / immunology
Encephalitis* / veterinary
Horse Diseases / virology
Horses
Varicellovirus*

Substances

Antigens, Viral
Cytokines