Early immune responses to an adjuvant (AbISCO-100) tested in porcine peripheral blood mononuclear cell
Immune stimulating complex (iscom) matrix is a formulation that is used as anadjuvant within research. The capability of the iscom matrix to elicit an immuneresponse when not present together with an antigen has not been extensivelyinvestigated. One way to evaluate the status of the immune system is to measure theamount of cytokines that usually are produced by various cell types during an immuneresponse. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the early immune responses inporcine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) after stimulation in vitro with theiscom matrix, AbISCO®-100. The immune response was evaluated by measuring themRNA expression for various cytokines, a chemokine receptor (CXCR4) andregulator of G-protein signaling (RGS16) in porcine PBMC after stimulation withAbISCO®-100 or other inducers like a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and a CpGoligodeoxynucleotide (ODN 2216) used as controls. Quantitative real-time PCRanalysis showed low increase (p ? 0.05) in mRNA expression of the pro-inflammatorycytokine TNF-? after 6 hours of stimulation with AbISCO®-100. This resultindicates that AbISCO®-100 may have the capacity to evoke a cytokine response byitself. In addition, low but detectable increases in expression of IL-10, CXCR4 andRGS16 were observed in one of five pigs after stimulation with AbISCO®-100. Incomparison, mRNA for IL-1?, IL-6, IL-10 (p ? 0.001), IL-12p40 and TNF-? (p ?0.01) was induced after 6 hours exposure of the PBMC to LPS and for IFN-? (p ?0.01) after 6 h in the presence of ODN 2216. Proliferation and viability testperformed, demonstrated that AbISCO®-100 was not mitogenic and just had a smalllytic effect on the PBMC . Thus, the iscom matrix, AbISCO®-100, does not appear tobe toxic or induce any harmful early inflammatory responses in porcine PBMC. Anextended period of incubation and use of a lager number of pigs are needed to betterexamine the effects of AbISCO®-100.