Project description:Toxoplasma gondii is a ubiquitous protozoan pathogen able to infect both mammalian and avian hosts. Surprisingly, just three strains appear to account for the majority of isolates from Europe and N. America. To test the hypothesis that strain divergence might be driven by differences between mammalian and avian response to infection, we examine in vitro strain-dependent host responses in a representative avian host, the chicken. To identify parasite drivers of strain-dependent host response, QTL mapping was used; analysis revealed a locus on Toxoplasma chromosome VIIb. To determine whether this was the parasite gene ROP16, array analysis was performed on chicken embryonic fibroblasts infected with Type I parasites and ROP16-KO parasites (of a Type I background).
Project description:We carried out a comparative genomic analysis of 48 avian species to identify avian-specific highly conserved elements (ASHCEs). We performed genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) for three enhancer-associated histone modifications (H3K4me1, H3K27ac, H3K27me3), to investigate dynamic regulatory roles of ASHCEs in chicken development. We found that all three enhancer-associated histone marks are enriched in ASHCEs compared to the whole genome background.
Project description:Toxoplasma gondii is a ubiquitous protozoan pathogen able to infect both mammalian and avian hosts. Surprisingly, just three strains appear to account for the majority of isolates from Europe and N. America. To test the hypothesis that strain divergence might be driven by differences between mammalian and avian response to infection, we examine in vitro strain-dependent host responses in a representative avian host, the chicken. To identify parasite drivers of strain-dependent host response, QTL mapping was used; analysis revealed a locus on Toxoplasma chromosome VIIb. To determine whether this was the parasite gene ROP16, array analysis was performed on chicken embryonic fibroblasts infected with Type I parasites and ROP16-KO parasites (of a Type I background). Chicken embryonic fibroblasts were cultivated in vitro and infected with either Type I (RH) parasites or Type I ROP16-KO parasites; ROP16-dependent host transcriptional responses were then analyzed at 5 hours post-infection.
Project description:We report the genome-wide DNA methylation mapping of chicken by methylated DNA immunoprecipitation following by highthroughput sequencing, and the gene expression profile of chicken by RNA-seq. For meDIP-seq, about 17,202,074 to 27,501,760 reads were generated for the tissue and liver tissues of the red jungle fowl and the avian broiler each. We found that compared with the red jungle fowl, DNA methylation in muscle tissue of the avian broiler, showed dramatically decline on a genome-wide scale. Furthermore, the length of the highly methylated regions (HMRs) has become shorter in the avian broiler, which has suffered intense artificial selection. In addition to the global changes in DNA methylation, transcriptome-wide analysis of the two breeds of chicken revealed that the patterns of gene expression in the domestic chicken have undergone a specific bias towards a pattern that is more suited to human-made environments with variable expression in certain gene functions, such as immune response and fatty acid metabolism. Our results demonstrated a potential role of epigenetic modification in animal domestication besides the genetic variations. Examination of whole genome DNA methylation status in liver and muscle of two chicken breeds.
Project description:We infected DF-1 cells with avian reovirus, and then used high-throughput sequencing to detect changes in miRNA expression profiles. This research provides a more comprehensive understanding of the interaction between viruses and host cells