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Submitted to: Poultry Science Association Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 5/20/2006 Publication Date: 7/16/2006 Citation: Lillehoj, H.S. 2006. Application of macrophage and intestinal cdna microarrays to study innate mucosal immunity in avian coccidiosis. July 16-19, Edmonton, Canada. P2 Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Coccidiosis is recognized as the major parasitic disease of poultry and is caused by the apicomplexan protozoa Eimeria. Coccidiosis seriously impairs the growth and feed utilization of infected animals resulting in loss of productivity. Conventional disease control strategies rely heavily on chemoprophylaxis and to a certain extent on live vaccines. These factors combined inflict tremendous economic losses to the world poultry industry in excess of $3 billion annually. Increasing regulations and bans on the use of anticoccidial drugs coupled with the associated costs in developing new drugs and live vaccines urges the need for developing novel approaches and alternative control strategies for coccidiosis. Recent technological advances in high-throughput molecular approaches to identify disease resistance genes and molecular/cell biological pathways associated with complex biological phenomenon now enable the development of an alternative strategy to combat these diseases. Recently, application of functional genomics has led to the identification of avian genes associated with resistance to coccidiosis. In this report, I will describe new findings using the chicken macrophage and intestinal cDNA microarrays that led to the identification of host genes which influence innate immune responses to Eimeria in the gut. Enhanced understanding of how Eimeria interact with host macrophages and intestinal immune system at the molecular and cellular levels will contribute to novel control strategies against coccidia. These EST sequences from Eimeria-stimulated intestinal IEL transcripts will be used to study global gene expression profiling and to identify novel immune-related genes during avian coccidiosis and in other enteric diseases of poultry. Those genes with significant differences can also be used as potential candidate genes influencing disease susceptibility traits. |
