PBMC transcriptomic responses to primary and secondary vaccination differ due to divergent lean growth and antibody titers in a pig model.

The genetic relationship between immune responsiveness and performance is not well understood, but a major topic of the evolution of resource allocation and of relevance in human medicine and livestock breeding, for instance. This study aims to show differences of transcript abundance changes during the time intervals before and after two tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccinations in domestic pigs differing in lean growth (LG) and anti-TT-antibody titers (AB) parameters of performance and immunocompetence. During response to the first vaccination all animals had a general decrease in transcript abundances related to various functional pathways as measured by comparative Affymetrix microarray hybridization and Ingenuity Pathway analyses. Low-AB phenotypes had predominantly decreased immune response transcripts. Combined phenotypes high-AB/high-LG had decreased transcripts related to growth factor signaling pathways. However, during the interval after the booster vaccination, high-LG and high-AB animals responded exclusively with increased immune transcripts, such as B-cell receptor signaling and cellular immune response pathways. In addition, high-LG and low-AB animals had predominantly increased transcripts of several cellular immune response pathways. Conversely, low-LG and high-AB animals had few elevated immune transcripts and decreased transcripts related to only two nonimmune-specific pathways. In response to booster vaccination high-LG phenotypes revealed enriched transcripts related to several different immune response pathways, regardless of AB phenotype. Different from the expected impact of AB titers, divergent AB phenotypes did not reflect considerable differences between immune transcripts. However, highly significant differences observed among divergent LG phenotypes suggest the compatibility of high performance and high vaccine responses.