[Effects of muscle needle biopsy on parameters of humoral and cellular immunity in pigs].

The shot biopsy is a common experimental technique for the collection of samples to investigate muscle tissue characteristics or to determine meat quality features in pigs. Its application seems to be also possible in interdisciplinary research projects investigating animal stress, behaviour, and welfare. The present study on 12 group-housed pigs (age: 12 weeks, weight: 29.3 kg) shows the influence of this wound-causing technique on different humoral and cell-mediated parameters of the immune system at 1, 3, 5, and 9 days after biopsy compared to the initially investigated levels before. An enhancement of the blood sedimentation rate and both the IgG and the cellular immune response in vivo (leukocytes, lymphocytes) as well as in vitro (ConA) was observed. Furthermore, there were signs of a secondary wound infection 5 days after biopsies were taken possibly caused by mutual oral manipulation of the animals. We conclude that the muscle shot biopsy technique can be used on group-housed pigs as a method to investigate muscle physiological characteristics. The technique, however, induces immunological reactions which may interfere with stress-induced immune reactions.