EN
Interleukin 6 (IL-6) plays an important role in stress response and glucocorticoid action on the brain. It has been also shown that IL-6 plays a significant role in physiological and pathological brain development and is a crucial factor in the effects of prenatal immune challenge on physiological and behavioral abnormalities in adult offspring. We examined involvement of IL-6 in stressinduced changes in behavior and brain mechanisms in the adult mice. The PhenoRack system was used to non-invasively monitor mice home cage activity. Behavior of wild type mice C57BL/6J and IL-6 -/- knockout (IL-6 KO) mice were observed for 3 days using the PhenoRack system, which enables non-invasive monitoring of the mice home-cage activity (distance travelled, speeds and duration of movement, freezing). Mice were also subjected to standard behavioral tests. The open field test was used to establish the balance between exploratory behavior and anxiety evoked by the unknown, potentially dangerous situation. We measured the distance travelled in the open part of the arena, as well as time spent in it. We observed the sex-dependent effect of IL-6 on exploratory behavior. In all tested parameters IL-6 deficient females showed less anxiety than the wild type females. There was no difference in behavior in the open field between wild type and IL-6 deficient males. After finishing behavioral tests, the animals were killed with an overdose of pentobarbital and their brains were perfused transcardially with saline (0.9% NaCl) followed by 4% paraformaldehyde in 0.1 M phosphate buffer. The brains were cut on a cryostat into 40 µm sections and collected into 10 parallel series. Two of these series were stained with antibodies against glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid (MR) receptors. One series from each brain was Nissl-stained for delineation of borders of the brain structures and evaluation of the number of cells in some of them. The number of hippocampal neurons and GRimmunopositive neurons in an area was estimated using the StereoInvestigator system (MicroBrightField Inc). Due to the crucial role of IL-6 in development of the hippocampus we evaluated the total number of cells in the CA1 field. We found that IL-6- deficient mice had significantly lower number of cells in the CA1 field and that almost all cells, unlike in wild-type mice, expressed the glucocorticoid receptor. Our preliminary results demonstrated that IL-6 is implicated in stress. Supported by the Polish National Science Center grant No 1577