EARLY LIFE STRESS INDUCES PRIMING OF THE IMMUNE RESPONSE IN KIDNEYS OF ADULT MALE RATS

Early life stress (ELS) in humans is associated with elevated proinflammatory markers. We hypothesized that ELS induces activation of the immune response in a rat model of ELS, maternal separation (MatSep), in adulthood. MatSep involves separating pups from the dam from postnatal day 2 to postnatal day 14 for 3 h/day. Control rats are nonseparated littermates. We determined circulating and renal immune cell numbers, renal immune cell activation markers, renal cytokine levels, and the renal inflammatory gene expression response to low-dose lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in male MatSep and control rats. We observed that MatSep did not change the percentage of gated events for circulating CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, and CD4+/Foxp3+ cells or absolute numbers of mononuclear and T cells in the circulation and kidneys; however, MatSep led to an increase in activation of renal neutrophils as well as CD44+ cells. Renal toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β) was significantly increased in MatSep rats, specifica...