Serotonin receptors and their association with the immune system in the gastrointestinal tract of weaning piglets

Table 1 Tissue¹ serotonin receptor² expression, immune biomarkers³, IgA-producing cell abundance⁴ and jejunum morphometry in piglets at 1- and 15-days post-weaning

	1-day post-weaning		15 days post-weaning		SE	P value
	Jejunum	Colon	Jejunum	Colon	SE	Time	Tissue	Time * Tissue
5-HTR3	21.9^a	22.7^a	15.2^b	3.86^c	0.484	< 0.0001	< 0.0001	< 0.0001
5-HTR4	3.37	2.76	1.52	2.06	0.294	< 0.0001	0.909	0.304
5-HTR7	3.07^a	2.00^ab	0.911^b	2.46^a	0.471	0.024	0.500	0.001
IL-1α	4.83	6.84	5.43	8.72	1.037	0.122	0.002	0.419
IL-1β	5.95	3.19	6.10	4.26	0.647	0.306	0.000	0.436
IL-6	2.33	3.01	2.36	3.57	0.354	0.384	0.008	0.438
IL-8	2.01	2.75	2.33	4.67	0.534	0.010	0.001	0.057
IL-10	3.14	1.56	3.98	3.44	0.352	0.001	0.002	0.110
IL-12α	7.98	4.81	7.29	4.93	0.846	0.711	0.001	0.595
IL-12β	4.74	3.57	5.13	3.23	0.433	0.944	0.001	0.307
TNF-α	12.8	22.3	12.5	20.6	1.386	0.387	< 0.0001	0.554
IFN-α	3.24	2.48	2.77	1.75	0.537	0.183	0.054	0.772
IFN-γ	3.39	2.67	5.03	3.29	0.766	0.011	0.006	0.218
TGF-β	12.9	11.4	13.0	11.5	0.230	0.650	< 0.0001	0.925
IgA-cells	12.3	8.51	14.7	11.3	1.545	0.082	0.017	0.890
Villus height	434		479		21.95	0.174
Crypt depth	221		285		12.94	0.002
Villus:crypt ratio	1.986		1.744		0.144	0.239

¹Jejunum and colon tissues from 1-day post-weaning piglets (n = 9) or 15 days post-weaning (post-weaning; n = 10)
²mRNA expression (log 2) of serotonin (5-HT) receptors (HTR3, HTR4, and HTR7)
³Cytokines = mRNA expression (log 2) of interleukin IL-1α, IL1-β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12p35 (IL-12α), IL-12p40 (IL12-β), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interferon alpha and gamma (IFN-α and IFN-γ), transforming growth factor betta (TGF-β)
⁴IgA-cells: counted in 10 non-overlapped field of 25.000 μm²
^a–cDifferent superscripts within a row indicate a significant difference (P < 0.05)

ISSN: 2055-5660