Serum metabolomics in chickens infected with Cryptosporidium baileyi

Abstract

Background Cryptosporidium baileyi is an economically important zoonotic pathogen that causes serious respiratory symptoms in chickens for which no effective control measures are currently available. An accumulating body of evidence indicates the potential and usefulness of metabolomics to further our understanding of the interaction between pathogens and hosts, and to search for new diagnostic or pharmacological biomarkers of complex microorganisms. The aim of this study was to identify the impact of C. baileyi infection on the serum metabolism of chickens and to assess several metabolites as potential diagnostic biomarkers for C. baileyi infection. Methods Ultraperformance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) and subsequent multivariate statistical analysis were applied to investigate metabolomics profiles in the serum samples of chickens infected with C. baileyi, and to identify potential metabolites that can be used to distinguish chickens infected with C. baileyi from non-infected birds. Results Multivariate statistical analysis identified 138 differential serum metabolites between mock- and C. baileyi-infected chickens at 5 days post-infection (dpi), including 115 upregulated and 23 downregulated compounds. These metabolites were significantly enriched into six pathways, of which two pathways associated with energy and lipid metabolism, namely glycerophospholipid metabolism and sphingolipid metabolism, respectively, were the most enriched. Interestingly, some important immune-related pathways were also significantly enriched, including the intestinal immune network for IgA production, autophagy and cellular senescence. Nine potential C. baileyi-responsive metabolites were identified, including choline, sirolimus, all-trans retinoic acid, PC(14:0/22:1(13Z)), PC(15:0/22:6(4Z,7Z,10Z,13Z,16Z,19Z)), PE(16:1(9Z)/24:1(15Z)), phosphocholine, SM(d18:0/16:1(9Z)(OH)) and sphinganine. Conclusions This is the first report on serum metabolic profiling of chickens with early-stage C. baileyi infection. The results provide novel insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of C. baileyi in chickens. Graphic abstract

C3a/C3aR Affects the Propagation of Cryptosporidium parvum in the Ileum Tissues of Mice by Regulating the Gut Barrier, Cell Proliferation, and CD4+ T Cell Main Effectors

“…The present study optimized an established suckling mouse model infected with C. parvum in our group by increasing the concentration of sodium taurocholate and the excystation time, and the results indicated that the optimized model significantly increased the excystation of C. parvum. Similar to the previous model, the optimized model also found pathological damage and an inflammatory reaction in the intestines in mice during C. parvum infection [31]. Compared with other infection models, the optimized mouse model in the present study simulated the natural infection process of animals and provided a candidate model for studies on the interaction between Cryptosporidium and hosts without the use of dexamethasone.…”

“…Extraction of total RNA from mouse ilea and subsequent synthesis of cDNA were the same as previous study [31]. The relative expression levels of Cryptosporidium 18S rRNA gene, C3aR, zo-1, claudin 3, occludin, lgr5, ki67, ifn-γ and tgf-β in mouse ileum tissues were evaluated by qPCR using SYBR Green Fast RT-qPCR Mix (ABclonal, Wuhan, China) according to the manufacturer's recommendations and with the primers listed in Table 1.…”

Metabolic pathway analysis of hyperuricaemia patients with hyperlipidaemia based on high-throughput mass spectrometry: a case‒control study

“…Metabolomics is an omics technology that has emerged in recent years; it uses mass spectrometry to detect small molecules in biological samples [ 16 ]. It has played a vital role in studying the changes of endogenous small molecules and revealing individual metabolic characteristics [ 17 ].…”

Monophasic Variant of Salmonella Typhimurium Infection Affects the Serum Metabolome in Swine

“…Indeed, metabolic alterations that occur in the cecal tissues could transition from the early resistance phase, which is proinflammatory, to a later tolerance phase, in which the local cecal environment undergoes a transition to an anti-inflammatory state, and finally to a homeostasis phase of disease tolerance [34]. Studies showed that infection by Salmonella Typhimurium can cause changes in the chicken muscle skeletal metabolism and that infection by the parasite Cryptosporidium baileyi was linked with variation of the serum metabolome [35,36]. Like our results, these studies indicate that alterations caused by enteric pathogens infection are not restricted to the digestive system.…”