Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) exists as two distinct viruses, type 1 (PRRSV-1) and type 2 (PRRSV-2). Atrophy of the thymus in PRRSV-2 infected piglets has been associated with a loss of thymocytes. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of PRRSV-1 strains of differing virulence on the thymus of infected piglets by analysing the histomorphometry, the presence of apoptotic cells and cells producing cytokines. Thymic samples were taken from animals experimentally infected (with LV, SU1-bel, and 215-06 strains) or mock inoculated animals at 3, 7 and 35days post-infection (dpi) and processed for histopathological and immunohistochemical analyses. PRRSV antigen was detected in the thymus from 3dpi until the end of the study in all virus-infected animals with the highest numbers of infected cells detected in SU1-bel group. The histomorphometry analysis and counts of CD3(+) thymocytes in the thymic cortex displayed significant differences between strains at different time-points (p≤0.011), with SU1-bel group showing the most severe changes at 7dpi. Cell death displayed statistically significant increase in the cortex of all infected animals, with SU1-bel group showing the highest rate at 3 and 7dpi. The number of cells immunostained against IL-1α, TNF-α and IL-10 were predominantly detected in the medulla (p≤0.01). An increase in the number of TNF-α and IL-10 positive cells was observed in LV and SU-1bel groups. Our results demonstrate that different PRRSV-1 strains induced depletion of the thymic cortex due to apoptosis of thymocytes and that the most severe depletion was associated with the highly virulent SU1-bel strain.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 May 2016.
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#7,356,343
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Outputs of similar age from Veterinary Microbiology
#6
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Altmetric has tracked 25,374,647 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 69th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,793 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 3.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its peers.
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