Project description:In order to elucidate the infection mechanisms of Eimeria tenella and the chicken immune response, chickens were infected with Eimeria tenella strain Hougton sporozoites. Samples were taken at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 10 days post-infection and mRNA sequenced. A dual-RNA seq analysis was carried out, comparing the expression of infected chickens during each sampling time point with uninfected chickens and comparing E. tenella samples during the infection with a sample of pure sporozoites. The results show a variety of response signals in the chicken, both previously known and unknown, as well as a clear role for a variety of infection-related genes in E. tenella
Project description:Relative expression levels of mRNAs in chicken cecal epithelia experimentally infected with Eimeria tenella were measured at 4.5 days post-infection. Two weeks old chickens were uninfected (negative control) or were orally inoculated with sporulated oocysts of Eimeria tenella. Cecal epithelia samples were collected from >12 birds in infected or uninfected group at 4.5 d following infections, in which samples from 4 birds were pooled together to form a total 3 biological replicates in each group. Parasite merozoites were also collected from four infected chickens at 5 d after infections. Uninfected control samples, merozoites and infection group samples were selected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. We used Affymetrix GeneChip chicken genome arrays to detail the chicken cecal epithelia gene expression in the control and E. tenella-infected birds.