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Title: Immunometabolism and the kinome peptide array: a new perspective and tool for the study of gut health

Author
item ARSENAULT, RYAN - University Of Delaware
item Kogut, Michael - Mike

Submitted to: Frontiers in Veterinary Infectious Diseases
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/23/2015
Publication Date: 10/13/2015
Publication URL: http://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/61657
Citation: Arsenault, R.J., Kogut, M.H. 2015. Immunometabolism and the kinome peptide array: A new perspective and tool for the study of gut health. Frontiers in Veterinary Infectious Diseases. 2:1-5.

Interpretive Summary: Baby chicks get infected with Salmonella bugs early in life and they are able to survive in the chicks throughout their life. Because of this, Salmonella can be consistently released from the birds and then infect the other chicks. Also, the presence of Salmonella in the chicks when they go to market means that they can get into chicken meat products where they can cause food poisoning in humans. The purpose of these experiments is to try to understand how Salmonella can survive in chicks for so long without being “seen” by the chick’s immune system. We developed a new technique that found that Salmonella causes a change in the immune response of the baby chicks so that they are “invisible” to the immune system. Thus, the immune cells cannot attack this bug and kill it. These results are important to the pharmaceutical industry because we have identified a specific target to stimulate the bird’s immune system and provide protection against infection.

Technical Abstract: Immunometabolism is a relatively new research perspective, focusing on both metabolism and immunology and the cross-talk between these biological processes. Immunometabolism can be considered from two perspectives; 1) the role immune cells play in organ metabolism and metabolic disease, and 2) the metabolic processes that occur within immune cells and how they affect overall immunity. The gut may be the prototypical organ of immunometabolism. The gut is the site of nutrient absorption and is a major, if not the major, immune organ. We also describe the integration of kinomics and the species-specific peptide array to the study of the gut. This unique immunometabolic tool combined with the unique immunometabolic nature of the gut provides significant research potential to many animal health applications.