Project Number: 1265-32000-087-09
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Jan 01, 2009
End Date: Dec 31, 2011

Objective:
The current specific aims are: (1) profile the in vivo whole blood RNA and cytokine response to Salmonella Typhimurium (ST) infection in animals with high and low fecal shedding phenotypes; (2) using the same animals in Aim 1, profile the in vitro whole blood RNA and cytokine response to exposure to the general inflammatory endotoxin, lipopolysaccaride; (3) annotate response profiles for common expression patterns and functional themes and develop regulatory network information on response to inflammatory stimuli; and (4) test existing and develop improved predictive models for identifying pigs with decreased fecal shedding at multiple stages of post-infection pro and in naïve pigs.

Approach:
Tests will be performed at BARC to quantitate RNA and protein levels for important markers of inflammatory and infectious processes critical to disease resistance. Simultaneously, the team plans to develop layers of information, based on transcriptional profiling data, on the mechanisms controlling inflammatory and infectious processes critical to disease resistance, and to integrate transcriptional and cromatin binding data available in the pig with similar data in other species to develop higher-level understanding of regulatory mechanisms.