Authors : Guadalupe Azucena Castillo Pena, German Isauro Garrido Farina, Gilberto Ochoa Uribe, Carlos Gerardo Garcia Tovar and Tonatiuh A. Cruz Sanchez
Abstract: The current study provides quantitative information about Mast Cells (MC) in the respiratory tract of clinically healthy pigs, at three different stages of growth. The presence of MC was quantified in the tonsils, the right cranial lung lobe, the right caudal lung lobe, the left cranial lung lobe and the left caudal lung lobe, as well as in the traqueobronchial lymph nodes, in newborn, weaned and adult pigs. Five clinically healthy animals were employed for each stage, all serologically negative to Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, PRRS, Aujeszky and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae. The extracted samples were processed by inclusion in paraffin and dyed with toluidine blue. Among recently born pigs, the greatest quantity of MC was observed in the tracheobronchial lymph nodes (1.44±1.84) and the least quantity in the right cranial lung lobe (0.16±0.04). Among weaned pigs, the greatest quantity was observed in the tracheobronchial lymph nodes (11.76±8.8 **p<0.001) and in the right cranial lung lobe right cranial lung lobe (6.8±4.7 *p<0.05). In tonsils of adult pigs, weighing 100 kg, was a greater amount of MC (7.96±3.01 *p <0.05). These data obtained from healthy animals will permit us to carry out future comparative studies in order to understand immunological phenomena in respiratory diseases.
Guadalupe Azucena Castillo Pena, German Isauro Garrido Farina, Gilberto Ochoa Uribe, Carlos Gerardo Garcia Tovar and Tonatiuh A. Cruz Sanchez, 2009. Distribution of Mast Cells in the Respiratory Tract of the Pig at Three Stages of Development. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 8: 2241-2246.