# Effects from Oral Administration of Recombinant Interferon-Alpha on Piglet Daily Care

Authors: Fawen Dai; Yanting Liu; Meimei Zhang; Tao Lin; Huashuo Chu; Ruixue Gong; Baokai Zhao
Journal: Mobile Information Systems
 (2022)

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## Abstract

The administration of interferon has improved the antiviral and immunomodulatory abilities of piglets, which is conductive to the prevention of potential diseases or delay the appearance of clinical symptoms. This study aimed to evaluate the effects from administration of recombinant interferon-alpha (IFN-α) on the daily care of piglets. The results were compared to a Chinese herbal drug that was shown to increase serum interferon levels. In addition, the administration routes of oral administration and intramuscular injection were evaluated. Forty (40) piglets with equal age and weight were randomly divided into four groups: control group (group C, without treatment), group H (treated with compound Chinese herbal), group K (administered orally with recombinant IFN-α, 1500 IU per day per piglet), and group J (administered intramuscularly with IFN-α, 4×106 IU per day per piglet). After the treatment of 15 days, both oral and intramuscular treatment of recombinant IFN-α significantly improved the secretion of IFN-gamma (IFN-γ) (P<0.05), and the effects of intramuscular pathway were faster. In addition, the expression levels of IFN-stimulated genes (MX1 and ISG15) were significantly enhanced (P<0.01), independently of IFN-α treatment time and serum IFN-γ level. Different from other studies, compound Chinese herbal showed weaker effects on interferon stimulation in piglets. The results indicated that oral administration of recombinant IFN-α improved interferon-induced response of piglets at both serum and molecular levels, which may be applied for improving autoimmunity of piglets.


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## Body

## 1. Introduction

Interferons (IFNs) have been known as a series of low molecular glycoproteins, which can interfere with viral infection and subsequent nucleic acid replication, thus suppressing viral proliferation. In addition, IFNs can also combat bacterial and parasitic infections. IFNs can be categorized into three distinct families according to its specific binding to the cell membrane receptors: type I (IFN-α and IFN-β), type II (IFN-γ), and type III (IFN-λ), and the endogenous IFNs are produced by leukocytes, fibroblasts, and immune lymphocytes [1, 2]. Attributed to their activities in immunoregulation, IFNs have been applied in both human health care and poultry industry [3].By attaching to the appropriate receptors on the cell membrane, exogenous injection of IFNs can increase IFN levels and begin a series of responses including signal transduction. Hundreds of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) will be triggered, which would eventually prevent numerous RNA and DNA viruses from infecting cells [4]. IFN- has been the most widely used exogenous IFN for clinical antiviral treatment, with significant evidence of its effectiveness [5].Recent studies demonstrated that the intramuscular injection of recombinant IFNs could be applied for the treatment of human influenza viruses [6], hepatitis viruses [7], and antigen-induced arthritis [8] etc. Similar results can also be obtained in animals, such as rhesus monkey [9], pig [10–12], and broilers [13]. The administration of IFN-α can inhibit the replication of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and enhance immune response in pigs [12]. Further, after combining with inactivated influenza virus, IFN-α could alleviate clinical signs in pigs during the early viral infection [11]. In short, IFN-α has been regarded as effective agents for the prevention and control of animal diseases.IFN- administration routes have been studied for years, including oral use [14, 15], intramuscular injection, and nasal infusion as a mucosal adjuvant [11]. Different pathways have different outcomes. For antiviral treatment, oral administration needed only a modest dose, but intramuscular injection required a large dose with substantial immune responses. Low-dose IFN- nasal infusions were similarly beneficial in immune activation. The administrative pathways should be chosen based on the applications in question.Chinese herb is widely applied in the poultry industry, since several Chinese herb species have been proved to contain active compound for immune enhancement ([16]; C. M. [17]). The combination polysaccharide of Astragalus polysaccharide and sulfated Epimedium polysaccharide can significantly elevate serum HI antibody titers, IL-2 and IFN-γ levels [16]. This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of recombinant IFN-α on immune performance in health piglets, with Chinese herb as comparison. The serum levels of IFN-γ and IFN-stimulated genes (MX1 and ISG15) were evaluated as indicators. The administration pathways were compared between oral intake and intramuscular injection. This study proposed that oral administration of IFN-α may be a facile, practical, and economic way for improving the immunity of piglets in daily care, and it may be also in conjunction with vaccine immunization. It may provide information for making up beneficial plans for health pig farms.


## 2. Materials and Methods

All animal care and handling were approved by the Ethics Committee for Animal Experimentation, Science and Technology Department, Leshan Normal University, Sichuan, China. This trial was conformed to the health plan (Permission No.: WJSY­2019) of pig farm of Beijing Vica Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China.A total of 40 crossbred piglets (Landrace×Large White) with the same age (about 40 days old) and similar body weight were selected and labeled with ear number. All piglets were fed the same basal diet, which was formulated according to the nutrient requirements proposed by National Research Council (2012) (Table1). Food and water were available ad libitum. All piglets weaned at 23 days of age were immunized with mycoplasma and porcine circovirus vaccine 7 days after weaning.Table 1
Basic diet formula and nutrition level.
IngredientsProportion (%)Nutrition index∗∗Nutritional contentCorn63CP17.50%46% soybean meal10Lys1.35%Puffed soybeans7.5Ca0.62%Fermented soybean meal5NE (Mcal)2600Steam fishmeal2.5Whey powder4Sucrose2Soybean oil2Premix∗4Note:∗Premix provided multidimensional and multimineral, salt, acidulant, phytase, pharmaceutical additives, etc. ∗∗Nutritional index was the calculated value.The compound Chinese herbal applied in this study was HLY provided by ShenYang Vica Animal Husbandry Technology Co., Ltd., composed ofAstragalus, Epimedium, Fructus Ligustris, etc. Each 1 g of HLY is equivalent to 1.2 g of crude drug by thin layer chromatography (TLC). Recombinant IFN-α was provided by Beijing Vica Industrial Technology Innovation Research Institute. The titer of this product was detected as 3.89×109 U/mL with MDBK-VSV cell line. The endotoxin was tested as below 50 EU/107 U with gel clot test.The 40 piglets were randomly divided into four groups (10 per group). The pigs in the same group were kept in one pen. The four groups were as follows: group C (control group without any treatment), group H (treated with compound Chinese herbal 1 : 1000 diluted in water every day), group K (administered orally with recombinant IFN-α diluted in distilled water every day, 1500 IU per day per piglet), and group J (administered intramuscularly with recombinant IFN-α diluted in saline every day, 4×106 IU per day per piglet). The treatment was lasted for 15 days.On days 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15, whole blood was collected from the precaval vein of piglets at 8:00 a.m. Blood samples were taken with and without anticoagulation (EDTA). For the test, serum was separated from nonanticoagulated blood and kept frozen at -20°C temperature. Anticoagulated blood and peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBMC) were separated. Total RNA was extracted from PBMC using the TRlzol reagent (Invitrogen) and purified using DNase I according to the manufacturer’s manual/instructions. The OD260nm: OD280nm ratio of the RNA was between 1.8 and 2.0. For the following tests and investigations, the RNA was reverse-transcribed and frozen at -80° C.The IFN-γ level in serum samples was detected by American Cygnus mouse γ-interferon ELISA kit, according to the manufacture’s manual. The r2 value of standard curve was 99.2%, and the IFN-γ level was calculated according to the standard curve.Primers were designed according to the gene sequences ofMX1 and ISG15 in pigs, and the primers of internal reference gene β-actin were published in NCBI (Table 2). The real-time PCR was performed with the cDNA template previously transcribed from extracted RNA. Real-time PCR was performed to detect the expression levels of MX1 and ISG15 with the SuperReal PreMix Plus (SYBR Green) kit (Tiangen, FP205). The optimized PCR conditions were 95°C for 15 min, 95°C for 10 s, 60°C for 20 s, 72°C for 20 s, 40 cycles, 95°C for 15 s, 60°C for 1 min, and 95°C for 15 s to collect the fluorescence signals. Each sample was repeatedly tested three times. The PCR products were ligated into pGM-Simple-T vector and transformed into E. coli DH5α to obtain the recombinant plasmids pTpoMX1, pTpoISG15, and pTpoβ-actin. After being identified and verified by PCR and sequence, these plasmids were stored at -80°C.Table 2
Primer sequence for IFN stimulation genes and internal reference gene.
GeneNCBI ref.PrimerSequence (5′ to 3′)PCR lengthβ-ActinU07786β-Actin F1CTTCCTGGGCATGGAGTCC201 bpβ-Actin R1GGCGCGATGATCTTGATCTTCMX1M65087MX1 F1CATCTGTAAAACTCTGCCCCTGT115 bpMX1 R1CATCTTCCCGCTTTCATCCTISG15EU584557.1ISG15 F2TGGTGAGGAACGACAAGGGTC128 bpISG15 R2CTCGAAAGTCAGCCAGAAATGGTThe relative mRNA expression was calculated by 2-ΔCt (ΔCt=Ct of the target gene-Ct of the housekeeping gene), and β-actin was taken as internal reference gene in this study. Real-time PCR efficiency was acquired by the amplification of serial dilution of plasmids contained target fragment according to the equation 10(-1/slope) and kept consistent between target genes and β-actin. Negative controls were performed in which water was substituted for cDNA.Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS17.0. One-way ANOVA and LSD method was used to analyze the significance of differences among groups. The general linear model GLM program was used to analyze the significance of the two factors (treatment time and administration pathways) on the evaluation indexes. Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) of bilateral test was used to analyze the correlation between IFN-γ and IFN-stimulated genes. P<0.05 indicated significant difference, and P<0.01 indicated extremely significant difference. The test data were presented as mean±standard error.


## 3. Results and Discussion

Effects from different treatments on IFN-γ level in piglet serums were shown (Figure 1). The administration of IFN-α showed significant enhancement of serum IFN-γ compared to that of Chinese herb and control. On days 1, 2, and 3 of treatment, the level of serum IFN-γ in piglets of group J was significantly higher than that of other groups (P<0.05). Compared to group C, the IFN-γ level in group J was increased by 118% and 84% on day 1 and day 2, respectively. On day 6, 9, 12, and 15, the IFN-γ level of group K was gradually increased, which was much higher than that of other groups. Compared to group H, the IFN-γ level in group K was significantly increased by 231% and 308% on day 6 and day 9, respectively (P<0.05). On day 15, the IFN-γ level in group K was increased by 345%, 531%, and 173%, respectively, compared to that of in group C, group H, and group J (P<0.05). The intramuscular injection of IFN-α showed significant increase of serum IFN-γ at the first 3 days, and oral administration showed gradual increase of serum IFN-γ during 6-15 days after the treatment.Figure 1
Effects from different treatments on serum IFN-γ level in piglets. a,bGroups identified with a similar letter above the bar at a time point were not different with probability P=0.05.The effects of various treatments on the level of MX1 mRNA expression in piglet PBMC were demonstrated (Figure2). In comparison to Chinese herb and control, IFN- treatment increased MX1 mRNA levels. On day 9, MX1 mRNA in piglets from group J was 64 percent higher than in piglets from group C (P0.05), despite no significant differences at other treatment time points. On day 2, MX1 mRNA in group K piglets were increased by 89 percent compared to group H (P0.05), and on day 3, it was enhanced by 47 percent compared to group J (P0.05).Figure 2
Effects from different treatments on the expression level ofMX1 mRNA in PBMC..a,bGroups identified with a similar letter above the bar at a time point were not different with probability P=0.05.Effects from different treatments on the expression level ofISG15 mRNA in PBMC of piglets were shown (Figure 3). Both the administration of IFN-α and Chinese herb elevated the level of ISG15 mRNA. On day 3, the level of ISG15 mRNA in group K and group H was increased by 13% and 28%, respectively, compared to that of group C (P<0.05). No significant difference was observed in other treatment time points.Figure 3
Effects from different treatments on the expression level ofISG15 mRNA in PBMC.Correlation between treatments and evaluation indexes was explored in all samples, including serum IFN-γ, expression level of MX1, and ISG15 mRNA. The different treatments had significant effects on serum IFN-γ and relative mRNA expression abundance of MX1 and ISG15 (P<0.01). However, the treatment duration had no significant effects (P>0.05).Correlation between serum level of IFN-γ and the expression level of IFN-stimulated genes in PBMC was explored in all samples (n=280, Table 3). No significant correlation was observed between serum IFN-γ with MX1 or ISG15 mRNA level in PBMC (P>0.05). Good correlation was observed between the expression of MX1 and ISG15 mRNA, with PCC of 0.771. The result was extremely significant (P<0.01).Table 3
Correlation of serum IFN-γ and IFN-stimulated genes in PBMC.
IndexSerum IFN-γMX1 mRNAISG15 mRNASerum IFN-γ10.006-0.01MX1 mRNA10.771∗∗ISG15 mRNA1Note:∗∗Indicated extreme significance, P<0.01.The supplementation of IFN-α has been widely applied in livestock and poultry industry. In recent years, the effects of IFN-α have been investigated, as immunoregulator, antivirals, vaccine adjuvant, and immunopotentiator [5] The oral administration of IFN-α in pig showed better adaptive immune response [10, 18]. It was resulted from the regulatory effect on IFN-γ gene and the increase of IFN-γ-secreting lymphocytes. Thus, the serum IFN-γ can be applied as an indicator for the effects of IFN-α [18]. Further, antiviral activity of IFN-α was also reported. The recombinant, replication-defective human adenovirus type 5 vectors containing porcine IFN-α (Ad5-pIFNα) was constructed. When challenged with foot-and-mouth disease virus 24 hours later, pigs treated and injected with 109 PFU of Ad5-pIFN were totally protected (FMDV). The animals had no clinical indications, no viremia, and no antibodies to viral nonstructural proteins, indicating that they were completely immune to FMDV infection [19, 20]. Pigs’ innate and adaptive immune responses to PRRSV can be improved once they are given a nonreplicating human adenovirus type 5 vector producing porcine IFN. Viremia was delayed, and viral load was decreased in the sera of pigs. Further, the number of virus-specific IFN-γ-secreting cells was increased [21]. In another study, IFN-α was administered via an adenovirus vector as an adjuvant with live-attenuated PRRSV vaccine for enhancing immune response to the vaccine. However, the assumed adjuvant effect was not observed and IFN-α inhibited replication of the vaccine virus [10]. IFN-α was also applied as mucosal adjuvant for influenza vaccine in pigs. The combination of low-dose IFN-α and inactivated influenza virus via nasal infusion could significantly upregulate the expression of immunoregulatory cytokines and induce a strong mucosal innate immune response [11].Most prior investigations focused on the effects of IFN- against viruses; however, in our study, IFN- was administered to healthy piglets. The impact on serum IFN- was investigated. The findings showed that IFN- was able to raise serum IFN- levels as well as the expression levels of IFN-stimulated genes in the days following treatment. The findings could aid in the control of viral illnesses in piglets during daily care, particularly in farms at risk of virus infection.The administration pathways have been another important factor for affecting the effects of IFN-α, which should be selected according to the specific applications. One study compared the therapeutic effect of natural chicken IFN-α administered via oral and intramuscular (i.m.) routes against Newcastle disease (ND) in broiler chicken. The protection effects were better in chicken treated with IFN-α via the oral route than in those treated via the i.m. route [13]. Similarly, broilers were administrated with recombinant IFN-α via intravenous, intramuscular, and subcutaneous injections. The findings revealed that IFN had a shorter half-life, peaking at about 3-4 hours [22]. In a prior investigation, serum IFN- and IFN- began to rise at several hours after an intramuscular injection of 24.5 106 IU IFN-2b and IFN- complex and then fell after reaching a peak in the human body [23]. The intramuscular injection (4 106 IU per day per piglet) and oral administration (1500 IU per day per piglet) were compared in our study. The oral treatment had a progressive increase in efficacy that lasted for 10 days, whereas the intramuscular injection had a rapid but rapidly reduced efficacy that lasted only a few days. The oral administration proved cost-effective, efficient, and simple compared to other approaches, such as the manufacture and injection of IFN-loading vectors.The active ingredients in traditional Chinese herb have been reported to regulate the IFN secretion. Studies found that the content of serum IFN-γ was significantly increased after 21 days of applying Astragalus polysaccharides in piglet diets, but it had no significant effect on IgG, IL-4, and IL-10 [24]. A similar result found that a compound traditional Chinese herb based on Astragalus polysaccharide, Epimedium polysaccharide, propolis flavonoids, and saponins significantly increased the mRNA relative expression levels of IFN-γ and IL-10 (L. [25]). However, in our study, it found that compound traditional Chinese herb, involving Astragalus, Epimedium, privet, etc., made no significant effect on piglet serum IFN-γ. The reason may be the improper compatibility, insufficient amount, or slow efficacy. Compared to traditional Chinese herb, the administration of IFN-α may provide a more controllable efficacy.Antiviral proteins MX1 and ISG15 are secreted by JAK/STAT signaling in an unconventional secretion pathway [26, 27]. In this study, the relative mRNA expression levels of IFN-stimulated genes MX1 and ISG15 were significantly correlated, indicating that MX1 and ISG15 were expression-related genes. The determination of MX1 and ISG15 may assist in exploring the mechanism of IFN-stimulated responses. From the results of our study, it found that the treatment method significantly affected the mRNA expression levels of MX1 and ISG15. For MX1, the oral administration of recombinant IFN-α can significantly elevate its mRNA expression level on day 2 of treatment, while the intramuscular administration can significantly increase the mRNA expression level on day 9. For ISG15, the oral administration of recombinant IFN-α can increase its mRNA expression level on day 3. No significant difference was observed in other treatment time points. Further analysis revealed no correlation between serum IFN-γ and IFN-stimulated genes. It indicated that exogenous treatment can regulate the serum IFN-γ and IFN-stimulated genes independently. Due to the complexity of immune-regulation, the mechanism of IFN-α treatment remained to be explored.


## 4. Conclusion

The administration of IFN-α made positive effects on the antiviral and immunomodulatory abilities of piglets, exhibited as improved serum level of IFN-γ and mRNA of IFN-stimulated genes (MX1 and ISG15) in PBMC. The results were compared with compound Chinese herbal, which was proved to improve serum interferon level. Further, the administration routes were compared between oral administration and intramuscular injection. Both oral and intramuscular administration of recombinant IFN- significantly enhanced IFN-gamma (IFN-γ) secretion (P0.05), with the effects of the intramuscular pathway being quicker. In addition, regardless of IFN treatment period or serum IFN level, the expression levels of IFN-stimulated genes (MX1 and ISG15) were significantly increased (P0.01). Compared to that of the intramuscular administration, the oral pathway presented gradually elevated level of serum IFN-γ and lasted for 15 days. The results showed that the oral administration of recombinant IFN-α enhanced their interferon-induced response of piglets at both the serum and molecular levels. It provided an economic and facile pathway to improve the autoimmunity of piglets, which can be applied in daily care in swine farm.



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