Early postnatal castration affects thymic and thymocyte noradrenaline levels and β-adrenoceptor-mediated influence on the thymopoiesis in adult rats

The interactions among the nervous, endocrine and immune system were studied by examining: i) thymic and thymocyte catecholamine levels in adult rats castrated (Cx) at postnatal day 3 and ii) effects of 14-day-long propranolol (P) treatment on main thymocyte differentiational molecule expression in adult non-Cx and Cx rat. The results demonstrated that castration in early postnatal period lowers levels of both neurally- and thymocyte-derived noradrenaline in adult rats, and thereby diminishes β-adrenoceptor-mediated fine tuning of the T-cell differentiation/maturation. In non-Cx rats P affected TCRαβ-dependent stages of thymocyte differentiation/maturation decreasing frequency of CD4+8+ double positive (DP) TCRαβlow cells entering selection processes and increasing relative number of positively selected DP TCRαβhigh (most likely due to an increased thymocyte surface density of Thy-1 that is involved in negative control of TCRαβ-mediated signaling/selection thresholds) and the most mature CD4+8− TCRαβhigh cells (including CD4+25+ regulatory cells). However, in Cx rats P failed to produce any significant changes in thymocyte subset composition.