THE EFFECTS OF INTERLEUKIN 6 AND INTERLEUKIN 10 ON FRAILTY IN C57BL/6 MICE

Abstract

Studies have shown that pro-inflammatory IL-6 and anti-inflammatory IL-10 interleukins may correlate to frailty and aging. This frailty can be defined in the context of clinical symptoms which include sarcopenia and osteoporosis, decreased activity level; or in the context of increased susceptibility to adverse health outcomes from a deficient immune system. In this experiment we tested a cohort of conditionally regulated IL-6 and IL-10 mice with controls (IL-6tg+.rtTA(r/r) (n=8), IL-10(-/-). IL-10tg+ rtTA(r/r) (n=10) and rtTA(r/r) (n=5)) under frailty assessments and immunological cell analysis. We were unable to successfully induce expression in the conditionally regulated mice. Subsequently, there was no difference in the frailty scores, weight, or temperature fluctuation between all three genotypes. As a preliminary study, there arose essential learning points of improvement that can be applied to future experiments concerning frailty in transgenic mice.