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. 2019 Mar 1;52(1):9.
doi: 10.1186/s40659-019-0216-9.

Intestinal transcriptional profiling reveals fava bean-induced immune response in DBA/1 mice

Guankui Du  1 , Man Xiao  2 , Qiwei Zhu  2 , Chen Zhou  3 , Ao Wang  2 , Wangwei Cai  4
Affiliations

Intestinal transcriptional profiling reveals fava bean-induced immune response in DBA/1 mice

Guankui Du et al. Biol Res. .

Abstract

Background: Fava beans (FBs) have long been used as food, and their principal disadvantage is derived from their haemotoxicity. We hypothesized that FB ingestion alters the intestinal gene expression pattern, thereby inducing an immune response.

Results: In-depth sequence analysis identified 769 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with the intestine in FB-treated DBA/1 mouse intestines. The identified genes were shown to be associated with biological processes (such as response to stimulus and immune system processes), human disease pathways (such as infectious diseases, endocrine and metabolic diseases, and immune diseases), and organismal system pathways (such as the digestive system, endocrine system, environmental adaptation, and immune system). Moreover, plasma total immunoglobulin E (IgE), histamine, interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13 levels were significantly increased when the mice were treated with FBs.

Conclusions: These results demonstrated that FBs affect the intestinal immune response and IgE and cytokine secretion in DBA/1 mice.

Keywords: DEGs; Differentially expressed genes; Fava beans; Histamine; Immune response; Total IgE.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Volcano plot of gene expression differences between the normal and FB-treated mouse groups. The X-axis represents the log2 transformed fold change. The Y-axis represents the − log10 transformed significance. The red points represent upregulated DEGs. The blue points represent downregulated DEGs. They grey points represent non-DEGs
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
GO classification of DEGs. The X-axis represents the number of DEGs. The Y-axis represents the GO term
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Pathway classification of DEGs. The X-axis represents the number of DEGs. The Y-axis represents the functional classification of KEGG. There are seven branches for KEGG pathways, including cellular processes, environmental information processing, genetic information processing, human disease (for animals only), metabolism, organismal systems and drug development
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Confirmation of the microarray results by RT-PCR. Gene expression of Tlr-2, Tlr-4, Map3k7, Ccl19, Blnk, Nox1, Foxp3, Noxa1, Cr2 and Fosb in mice on a control diet and mice supplemented with FBs was analysed by microarray (a) and RT-PCR (b) using the stable reference gene β-Actin. The data are presented as the mean ± SE (n = 6)
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
The levels of IgE and cytokines in mouse blood were analysed after treatment with fava beans. The data are presented as the mean ± SE (n = 8). Asterisk indicates a significant difference (P < 0.05) between the control and FB-treated groups
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