Project description:Fowlpox virus (here as FP9, a plaque-purified, high passage-attenuated derivative) effectively suppresses induction of the âinnateâ immune responses, notably the Type I interferon system, of the permissive host (chicken). Despite the extensive usage of fowlpox virus as a recombinant vaccine vector in chickens, its immunomodulatory mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this study, a transcriptomic analysis using the Affymetrix GeneChip chicken genome array was performed at the host gene transcription level at 4, 8, 16 and 24 hours post-infection of mock treated and FP9-infected (MOI=5, 2h) chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF). The experiment was performed in triplicate with three different batches of CEFs. Because fowlpox virus is capable of expressing antigens in mammalian cells, these studies in chicken cells form a baseline for subsequent study of immunomodulation of mammalian innate immune responses.
Project description:In this study, we used RNA-sequencing to compare the transcriptional programmes in cESC, elicited either by stimulation with recombinant interferon-α or by infection with the attenuated Fowlpox virus vaccine strain (FP9), the canarypox virus vaccine strain (CNPV), the Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) virus or PBG98, a mild vaccine strain of infectious bursal disease virus.
Project description:The gut of chicken is mostly colonised with Campylobacter jejuni and with 100 fold less C. coli. The competitive ability of C. coli OR12 over C. jejuni OR1 has been examined in experimental broiler chickens following the observation that C. coli replaced an established C. jejuni intestinal colonisation within commercial chicken flocks reared outdoors (El-Shibiny, A., Connerton, P.L., Connerton, I.F., 2005. Enumeration and diversity of campylobacters and bacteriophages isolated during the rearing cycles of free-range and organic chickens. Applied Environmental Microbiology. 71, 1259-1266).
Project description:Fowlpox virus (FWPV) is a double-stranded DNA virus, used as a live vaccine against poultry diseases, and considered a promising potential mammalian vaccine vector. Similar to mammalian poxviruses, FWPV has evolved mechanisms to evade host immune responses at different levels. We infected chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) with individual FWPV mutants (n=59), each deficient in one non-essential gene, from a previously described knock-out virus library [Laidlaw et al, 2013 J Virology 87(9); Laidlaw and Skinner, 2014 Bio-protocol 4(10); e1126]. Host responses to the mutant viruses were screened at 16h post infection for each virus using Affymetrix GeneChip Genome arrays which includes probes for most FWPV genes. Controls included the wild type virus and uninfected samples. To avoid systematic errors due to different batches of CEF and hybridisation/scanning on different dates, samples were processed in groups of randomised samples.
