The assay uses blood taken from any mammalian subject (in this case, cows) and stimulates growth of lymphocytes (which are cells that work in our immune system).
I had cows that were being exposed to two different amounts of light and dark (which we call photoperiod). One set of cows was on short days, which was 8 hours of light followed by 16 hours of darkness. The other set of cows was on long days, which was 16 hours of light followed by 8 hours of darkness. And believe me, taking blood samples in the dark is not easy!
I wanted to see if the prolonged exposure to either of these lighting set ups would have an effect on their immune function. The lymphocyte proliferation assay is one way of looking at immune function.
There is a very obvious difference between the two sides meaning that one of the photoperiod groups had more lymphocyte growth than the other group.
Anyone want to guess which is which?
(Leave it to me to include my science in my blog, right?)
1 comment:
That was my second guess!!
I would think that the dark color were the cows that had more dark time?
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