Kusza, SzilviaAstuti, Putri KusumaFajardo, Roland2023-05-052023-05-052023-03-25https://hdl.handle.net/2437/351975Seasonal increase in ambient temperatures causes heat stress on livestock that consequently affects various aspects that include but not limited to health, welfare, and overall productivity. Understanding the responses of animals to heat stress on the genomic level has led to the identification of genes that are related to and implicated in thermal stress reaction mechanisms. In the present study, 4 Hungarian Indigenous Tsigai sheep (2 rams and 2 ewes) were sampled during the peak of summer and winter season to determine and assess the expression levels of Interleukin-10 (IL-10), an immune-modulatory cytokine gene, using the RT-qPCR method, which were further used to calculate the relative gene expression with the winter values as calibrator. Temperature Humidity Indices (THI) were also determined using meteorological data during the sample collection days to evaluate heat stress levels. The differences between summer and winter season IL-10 gene expression, and between ewes and rams in every season, were determined by analyzing gene expression data. Results showed that the expression of the IL-10 gene was significantly higher (P<0.05) during the summer season, when the THI was high (79.0= severe heat stress), compared to the winter season’s. The within-sex differences in IL-10 relative gene expression were not significant for both seasons. In conclusion, summer heat stressor may increase the expression of IL-10 in sheep, shifting immunological response from inflammatory and cell-mediated into adaptive mechanisms to potentially avoid cellular damage during heat stress conditions. Furthermore, the results of the current study suggest that IL-10 could serve as a molecular marker for heat stress and, possibly, a reliable immunological marker for the quantification of heat stress-mediated immune modulation in sheep.52enInterleukin-10indigenous Tsigai sheepheat stressDEENK Témalista::MezőgazdaságtudományHozzáférhető a 2022 decemberi felsőoktatási törvénymódosítás értelmében.