Animals
A total number of six, three (21-days-old; weighting, 810 kg) and three (0-day-old; weighting, 1.101.30 kg) male crossbred Duroc/Landrace/Yorkshire piglets were obtained from Jiangsu Huai’an Pig Farm (Huai’an, China). The piglets were kept in Jiangsu Huai’an Pig Farm with a constant humidity of 60% and 26˚C temperature at light/dark cycle after each 12 h with free access to water and food.
Material Collection
At the day of euthanasia, each piglet was sacrificed by anesthetizing with an intravenous injection of pentobarbital sodium (100 mg/kg) before sample collection. To ensure whether the piglets were completely anesthetized, the eyelids and withdrawal reflex were checked before opening the thorax. Duodenum, jejunum, and ileum tissues samples were immediately collected from the piglets. All procedures performed on the animals were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Nanjing Agricultural University and followed the National Institutes of Health guidelines for the performance of animal experiments.
Histological analysis
The tissue samples of small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, and ileum) were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde for 48 h at room temperature. After fixation, the samples were sectioned in small pieces to fit the glass slides and then dehydrated in a graded alcohol series (75, 85, 95, 100, and 100% ethanol, each for 1 min). The dehydrated blocks were embedded in paraffin wax and keep in room temperature to dry completely. The tissue samples were sectioned longitudinally on glass slide at 5-μm-thick by using microtome. The sections were dried horizontally on a warming tray overnight at 37 °C, dewaxed in xylene, and rehydrated in a graded series of ethanol (100, 90, 80 and 70%, each for 1 min), and washed in PBS for hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. The sections stained with H&E were examine by light microscopy (BH–2, Olympus). Villus height and crypt depth were measured (single-blind) by an observer using computer-assisted morphometry (Image-Pro Plus software). The area of lymphoid follicles in ileal Peyer’s patches (PPs) was also measured.
Immunohistochemistry
After deparaffinization and rehydration, the sections were subsequently poached into a citrate buffer (pH 6) at 90‑95˚C for 15 min to retrieve antigens. Then, the sections were treated with 0.3% hydrogen peroxide at room temperature for 15 min to quench endogenous peroxidase and wash with PBS. To avoid the non-specific binding of antibodies the sections were blocked with 5% bovine serum albumin for 30 min at room temperature. After incubating with the primary antibodies overnight at 4˚C, sections were treated with biotinylated secondary antibodies for 1 h at room temperature. To visualize the positive cells, sections were treatment with diaminobenzidine (DAB) for 60 min at room temperature, and then sealed with neutral balata. The respective isotypes were used as negative controls. The sections were visualized by light microscope (Olympus CX23; Olympus Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) at a magnification of x400 or x100. Different fields of each tissue in each piglet were counted for the statistical analysis.
Immunofluorescence staining
The tissue sections were incubated with 0.4% Triton X–100 in PBS for 5 min. After blocking with 5% bovine serum albumin in PBS for 1 h, the sections were stained with UEA-I antibodies at room temperature for 2 h. PBS was used instead of antibody in control samples. After staining with DAPI, the sections were observed under a confocal laser microscope (LSM–710; Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany) visualized by CLSM (LSM 710, Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany).
RNA isolation and RTqPCR.
Total RNA was extracted from duodenum, jejunum, and ileum tissues using a TRIzol™ Plus RNA Purification kit according to the manufacturer’s protocol (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.). 1 ug of total purified RNA was reverse transcribed to cDNA by using PrimeScript™ RT‑PCR kit (Takara Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Dalian, China) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Reverse transcription was performed at one cycle of 37˚C for 15 min followed by 85˚C for 5 sec. A total of 2 μl diluted cDNA (vol:vol, 1:5) was used to perform RT‑qPCR analysis, by ABI 7500 PCR system (Life Technologies; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.) using SYBR‑Green qPCR Master Mix (Takara Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Dalian, China) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. The thermo cycler reaction involved a pre-incubation of 95˚C for 30 sec, followed by 40 cycles of 95˚C for 5 sec and 60˚C for 31 sec. Data were normalized against GAPDH mRNA level and are expressed as fold differences between control and treated cells calculated using the 2-ΔΔCT method.
Flow Cytometry
Isolated single-cells were obtained from piglet intestines were stained with anti-CD3-APC (BD Biosciences, California, USA), anti-CD4-FITC (BD Biosciences, California, USA), anti-CD8-PE (BD Biosciences, California, USA) (1:100 dilution) for 30 min on ice in dark. After staining, the cells were washed twice with PBS and the expression of surface markers was observed using flow cytometry (FACSC6, BD Biosciences) instrument. The flow cytometry data were analyzed using FlowJo software. A total of 10,000 lymphocytes were acquired per sample.
Statistical analysis
Results were expressed as means ± standard deviation (SD). Analysis of variance and unpaired Student’s t-tests were employed to determine statistical significance differences among multiple groups. The differences were considered significant at *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01.