Identification of differentially expressed genes in uninfected and Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (M. ptb.) infected sheep

摘要

Mycobacterium paratuberculosis causes a chronic progressive wasting disease in sheep. Most of the data on the molecular pathogenesis of the disease has come from studies in other species in the advanced stages of the disease or from macrophage infection models. Molecular techniques used in these studies include microarray analysis, selective capture of transcribed sequences (SCOTS) and RNA arbitrarily primed-PCR (RAP-PCR). The objective of this study was to examine host gene expression during the initial stages of M. ptb. infection and during the clinical stage of infection to identify known or novel genes regulating the response to infection, and to define genes that can be used to identify M. ptb. infected animals earlier than currently possible. Long distance differential display PCR (DD-PCR) was employed to identify differentially expressed genes in lymph node and ileal tissues collected from uninfected, early stage infected or clinically infected Merino sheep.