Fig. 5.

Effects on spleen weight and functional splenic in vitro GC sensitivity

When compared to respective single-housed control (SHC; light-grey bars; circles) mice, chronic subordinate colony housing (CSC; dark-grey bars; triangles) increased relative spleen weight (Fig. 5A) in both the wild type (WT; GR^+/+; unhatched bars) and GR^dim (GR^dim/dim; hatched bars) group. Furthermore, relative spleen weight of GR^dim SHC and CSC mice was increased compared to respective WT mice. Both, WT and GR^dim CSC mice had a bite score above 20 (WT: 27.5; GR^dim: 44.2; Fig. 5B). Splenic cell in vitro viability in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS; Fig. 5C) was increased in all groups. Splenocytes from WT and GR^dim CSC mice showed a higher basal and LPS-induced cell viability compared to respective SHC mice. Basal cell viability was increased in splenocytes from GR^dim vs. WT CSC mice. Delta (LPS - basal) cell viability (0 μM corticosterone (CORT) set to 100%; Fig. 5D) in response to 0.1 μM CORT was reduced in WT SHC and CSC mice when compared to the 0 μM condition. Delta cell viability in response to 0.1 μM CORT was significantly increased in GR^dim SHC and CSC vs. respective WT mice, as well as WT CSC vs. SHC mice. Data are presented as bar graphs (mean +SEM) with individual dots. **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.001 vs. respective SHC. ^#P ≤ 0.05, ^###P ≤ 0.001 vs. respective WT. ^$$$P ≤ 0.001 vs. respective basal or 0 μM condition.