Influence of gender on OVA-induced airway inflammation in C57/B6J mice on a high-fat diet

Abstract

Overweight/obesity has been suggested as a risk factor for asthma development, and prospective studies have confirmed that high body weight precedes asthma symptoms. However, the nature of the association between overweight/obese status and asthma remains unclear. Animal models of obesity-related asthma are very useful for understanding disease pathophysiology. Although C57/B6J mice are the most widely used animal model for researching obesity-related asthma, gender differences are not always taken into consideration. Therefore, to explore the effect of gender on the development of obesity-related asthma, both female and male C57/B6J mice were used in this study. The mice were fed with a high-fat diet or a low-fat diet as control. Body weight, body length, liver weight, and Lee’s Index were used to evaluate obesity status, and lung histology, lung inflammatory cells infiltration, and inflammatory cytokines in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were examined for asthma evaluation. We found that the mean body weight of male mice on a high-fat diet gradually increased and was significantly higher than control male mice on a low-fat diet ( P < 0.01), while no significant differences were found between female mice at the end of 12 weeks of feeding. Furthermore, the obese asthma group female and male mice exhibited significantly high inflammatory cells infiltration than normal weight or obese female and male mice ( P < 0.01). However, the obese asthma group presented higher Neu infiltration, Th1 cytokine, and interferon gamma (IFNγ) concentrations in BALF than the asthma group in both the genders ( P < 0.01). In conclusion, both female and male mice are suitable for the obesity-related asthma model, although male mice might be more stable. Besides, obesity-related asthma is not Th2 type asthma.