Duck Plague (DP) or Duck viral enteritis is an acute contagious and highly fatal disease in water fowl commonly caused by Anatidalphavirus-1 belonging from Herpesviridae family and contains double stranded DNA as genetic material. Pathogen associated molecular pattern (PAMP)s when identified by Pathogen Recognition Receptor (PRR)s acts as effective immunity system action against the pathogen. Melanoma Differentiation-Associated protein 5 (MDA5) and Retionic Acid Inducible Gene I (RIG1) are protein sensor commonly sense for viral double stranded RNA and helps for pro-inflammatory cytokine expression. Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT)s have important role in immune response. The current study depicts the important role of three important immune response genes as RIGI, MDA5 and INFalpha in duck plague infestation for the first time. In silico studies followed by differential mRNA expression of RIG1, MDA5 and INFalpha was employed to detect effectiveness of gut associated immune responsiveness in liver, where kupfer cells are the major immune response cells. This was further confirmed through histological section of liver, kupfer cell and immunohistochemistry. This will be helpful to identify molecular mechanism of host innate immunity through duck plague virus infection in indigenous duck. This information may be helful for production of duck with the inherent resistance against duck plague virus infection through suitable biotechnological approaches as gene editing.Due to this inherent nature of better immunity in terms of resistance to other common avian diseases, duck will evolve as one of the major sustainable poultry species.The current study explores the scope to study host immunity against herpes virus in animal model.

Anas platyrynchos (ducks) are reared mostly for egg, which are very nutritious, that fetch better prices, however duck meat possess rich nutrient content. They possess the unique characteristics of disease resistance to the common avian diseases, even asymptomatic to avian influenza, with a scopeto evolve as one of the best poultry species The major limitation encountered is the lowered average egg production as well as higher age at first egg (an indicator for sexual maturity) for the indigenous ducks compared to that of exotic ones. In this current study, we attempt to explore the genes responsible for duck reproduction in terms of sexual maturity,egg production and fertility of the ducks . We had compared the genomic constitution for the Bengal duck with highest egg production with that of non-layer (infertile or sexually immature) ducks. We characterized the genes in indigenous ducks from ovarian tissues, identified important domains for characterized genes for the first time, and studied differential mRNA expression profiling for these genes with respect to layer and non-layer groups. Upregulation was observed for ESR2, DIAPH2, KMT2E, ASCF2 genes for Bengal duck in highest egg producing duck in comparison to non-layer duck, whereas downregulation was observed for KSR1, A2M, BMPR1B, ACVR1. In the next step, we explored the association with the genes which were actually responsible for egg production. Thus, duck may be utilized as a model for studying the molecular aspect of reproduction. Genes upregulated may be utilized for knock in of gene, whereas down regulated genes may be knocked out or knocked down through gene editing technologies for the improvement of reproductive performance of the duck in future. Molecular biomarkers may be developed with these genes for early selection of better reproducing ducks at day of hatch or even earlier.