Highly pathogenic Avian influenza (HPAI) is a notifiable viral disease caused by avian influenza type A viruses of the Orthomyxoviridae family. Type A influenza genome consists of eight segments of negative-sense RNA. RNA segment 2 encodes three proteins, PB1, PB1-F2, and N40, which are translated from the same mRNA by ribosomal leaky scanning and reinitiation. Since these proteins are critical for viral replication and pathogenesis, targeting their expression can be one of the approaches to control and resist HPAI. MicroRNAs are short noncoding RNAs that regulate a variety of biological processes such as cell growth, tissue differentiation, apoptosis, and viral infection. In this study, a set of 300 miRNAs expressed in chicken lungs were screened against the HPAI virus (H5N1) segment 2 with different screening parameter like thermodynamic stability of heteroduplex, seed sequence complementarity, conserved target sequence, and target-site accessibility for identifying miRNAs that can potentially target the transcript of segment 2 of H5N1. Chicken miRNAs gga-mir-133c, gga-mir-1710, and gga-mir-146c* are predicted to target the expression of PB1, PB1-F2, and N40 proteins. This indicates that chicken has genetic potential to resist/tolerate H5N1 infection and these can be suitably exploited in designing strategies for control of avian influenza in chicken.
The recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak is one of its kind in the history of public health that has created a major global threat. The causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has a zoonotic source and hence, reverse zoonosis (disease transmission from humans to animals) increases the risk and rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Serological and molecular analyses and experimental infection studies have identified SARS-CoV-2 infection in several animal species in various countries. Different domestic and wild animals, including cats, dogs, tigers, lions, puma, snow leopard, minks, and pet ferrets, are infected naturally with SARS-CoV-2, mostly through suspected human to animal transmission. In addition, in vivo experimental inoculation studies have reported the susceptibility of cats, ferrets, hamsters, Egyptian fruit bats, and non-human primates to the virus. These experimentally infected species are found to be capable of virus transmission to co-housed animals of the same species. However, SARS-CoV-2 showed poor replication in livestock species such as pigs, chickens, and ducks with no detection of viral RNA after the animals were deliberately inoculated with the virus or exposed to the infected animals. As the pets/companion animals are more susceptible to COVID-19, the infection in animals needs an in-depth and careful study to avoid any future transmissions. The one health approach is the best inter-disciplinary method to understand the consequences of viral spread and prevention in novel host populations for the betterment of public health. Further in this review, we will explain in detail the different natural and experimentally induced cases of human to animal SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Tropical theileriosis is a major protozoan disease of cattle and is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Indigenous cattle (Bos indicus) are less affected by this disease than exotic and crossbred cattle. Genetic basis of resistance to tropical theileriosis in indigenous cattle is not well studied. Recent reports suggest that number of immune response genes expressed differentially in exotic and indigenous breeds play an important role in breed specific resistance to tropical theileriosis. Such studies comparing expression of these genes in crossbred cattle and indigenous cattle are lacking. The present study compares the mRNA expression of immune-related genes in response to Theileria annulata infection in indigenous and crossbred cattle. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated from blood samples of indigenous (Tharparkar) and crossbred (HF/BS/Jersey × Hariana) cattle and challenged with prepared ground-up tick supernatant carrying Theileria annulata sporozoites in vitro. qPCR was employed to measure relative mRNA expression of toll-like receptor 10 (TLR10), signal-regulatory protein alpha (SIRPA), MHC class II DQα (BoLA-DQA), musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma (MAF) and prion protein (PRNP) genes in infected and control PBMCs from crossbred and indigenous cattle. On the basis of comparative fold change analysis, significant up-regulation in SIRPA, PRNP and MHC DQα genes and significant down-regulation in TLR10, cMAF and MAFB genes in crossbreds as compared to indigenous cattle was observed. Results of the present study suggest that breed specific differential expression of the genes under study may contribute to the breed specific resistance to Theileria annulata infection in indigenous cattle compared to crossbred cattle.
Climate change is an imminent threat to livestock production. One adaptation strategy is selection for heat tolerance. While it is established that the ATP1A1 gene and its product play an important role in the response to many stressors, there has been no attempt to characterize the sequence or to perform expression profiling of the gene in production animals. We undertook a field experiment to compare the expression profiles of ATP1A1 in heat-tolerant Vechur and Kasaragod cattle (Bos taurus indicus) with the profile of a heat-susceptible crossbreed (B. t. taurus × B. t. indicus). The cattle were exposed to heat stress while on pasture in the hot summer season. The environmental stress was quantified using the temperature humidity index (THI), while the heat tolerance of each breed was assessed using a heat tolerance coefficient (HTC). The ATP1A1 mRNA of Vechur cattle was amplified from cDNA and sequenced. The HTC varied significantly between the breeds and with time-of-day (p < 0.01). The breed–time-of-day interaction was also significant (p < 0.01). The relative expression of ATP1A1 differed between heat-tolerant and heat-susceptible breeds (p = 0.02). The expression of ATP1A1 at 08:00, 10:00 and 12:00, and the breed–time-of-day interaction, were not significant. The nucleotide sequence of Vechur ATP1A1 showed 99% homology with the B. t. taurus sequence. The protein sequence showed 98% homology with B. t. taurus cattle and with B. grunniens (yak) and 97.7% homology with Ovis aries (sheep). A molecular clock analysis revealed evidence of divergent adaptive evolution of the ATP1A1 gene favoring climate resilience in Vechur cattle. These findings further our knowledge of the relationship between the ATP1A1 gene and heat tolerance in phenotypically incongruent animals. We propose that ATP1A1 could be used in marker assisted selection (MAS) for heat tolerance.
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