Experimental challenge with bovine respiratory syncytial virus in dairy calves: bronchial lymph node transcriptome response
Date
2019-10-14
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Nature Research
Abstract
Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) is the leading cause of mortality in calves. The objective of this study
was to examine the response of the host’s bronchial lymph node transcriptome to Bovine Respiratory
Syncytial Virus (BRSV) in a controlled viral challenge. Holstein-Friesian calves were either inoculated
with virus (103.5 TCI D50/ml × 15 ml) (n = 12) or mock challenged with phosphate buffered saline (n = 6).
Clinical signs were scored daily and blood was collected for haematology counts, until euthanasia at day
7 post-challenge. RNA was extracted and sequenced (75 bp paired-end) from bronchial lymph nodes.
Sequence reads were aligned to the UMD3.1 bovine reference genome and differential gene expression
analysis was performed using EdgeR. There was a clear separation between BRSV challenged and
control calves based on gene expression changes, despite an observed mild clinical manifestation
of the disease. Therefore, measuring host gene expression levels may be beneficial for the diagnosis
of subclinical BRD. There were 934 differentially expressed genes (DEG) (p < 0.05, FDR <0.1, fold
change >2) between the BRSV challenged and control calves. Over-represented gene ontology terms,
pathways and molecular functions, among the DEG, were associated with immune responses. The
top enriched pathways included interferon signaling, granzyme B signaling and pathogen pattern
recognition receptors, which are responsible for the cytotoxic responses necessary to eliminate the
virus.
Description
Publication history: Accepted - 19 September 2019; Published online - 14 October 2019.
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Citation
Johnston, D., Earley, B., McCabe, M. S., Lemon, K., Duffy, C., McMenamy, M., Cosby, S. L., Kim, J., Blackshields, G., Taylor, J. F. and Waters, S. M. (2019) ‘Experimental challenge with bovine respiratory syncytial virus in dairy calves: bronchial lymph node transcriptome response’, Scientific Reports. Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 9(1). doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-51094-z.