Project description:Avian coccidiosis is a major disease of poultry caused by the intestinal protozoa Eimeria. Aviagen line A and line B birds show differential susceptibility to Eimeria infection, with line B birds exhibiting higher lesion scores and mortality. The objective of this study was to examine differential intestinal gene expression between line A and B chicks in response to a challenge with Eimeria maxima. Following challenge with 1 x 10^4 oocysts/chick, greater than 40% of line A chicks had lesion scores of 0 to 1 (on 0 to 4 scale), similar to controls. In contrast, all line B challenged chicks at this same dose had lesion scores of 2 to 4.
Project description:Apicomplexa parasite Eimeria is the causative agent of coccidiosis, which leads to enteritis in animals and causes huge economic burden to the farm industry. The Apicomplexan Apetala2/ERF (ApiAP2) transcription factors have proved to play key roles in various processes in other Apicomplexa parasites. However, little is known about the function of ApiAP2s in Eimeria species. In this study, we functionally characterized an ApiAP2 by direct knockout mediated by CRISPR-Cas9. Our results showed that the invasion efficiency, total oocyst output and virulence to the host were significantly impaired after EtAP2-S1 depletion. RNA-Seq and CUT&Tag analyze showed that EtAP2-S1 targets on the promoters of numerous genes and its knockout results in upregulation of 59 sag genes. Additionally, the knockout strain exhibits significantly reduced virulence but provides excellent immune protection, which makes it a good vaccine candidate. This study demonstrates that EtAP2-S1 is a fitness coffering gene that suppress the expression of sag genes in E. tenella, and this is the first practice in developing gene knockout vaccine for the control of coccidiosis.
Project description:Eimeria tenella is a high pathogenic coccidian that causes avain coccidiosis. Both Nitromezuril(NZL) and Ethanamizuril(EZL) are novel triazine compounds with high anticoccidial activity, but the mechanisms of their action are still unclear. This study explored the response of E.tenella to NZL and EZL by the study of changes in protein composition of the second-generation merozoites using label free quantification proteomics.After drug treatment, the merozoites were analyzed by LC-MS/MS. The identified proteins were annotated and analyzed by Gene ontology, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway and Protein-protein interaction networks analysis.