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Friday Nov 24th 2006, London

Talks include


Towards improving innate immune robustness in the chicken - Dr P Kaiser- Head of the Avian Genomics group at the Institute for Animal Health, Compton, Oxon
The availability of the chicken genome sequence provides the opportunity to resolve outstanding questions concerning which molecular components of the immune system are shared between mammals and birds, and which represent their unique evolutionary solutions.  One benefit of this approach should be to identify genes whose products drive innate immune responses in birds, and subsequently single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these genes between different lines of chickens that differ in their resistance to pathogens. SNPs that correlate with disease resistance are potential markers for use in marker-assisted selection programmes, with the aim of breeding chickens with improved innate immune robustness.

Comparative Immunology – mapping disease resistance genes - Professor Michael Stear - University of Glasgow
We now have the technology to map disease resistance genes although identifying the causative mutations is proving more difficult.  This talk will discuss how to identify the genetic basis of disease resistance using both quantitative and molecular approaches.

Trypanosomiasis in mice and cattle; a model for the response to acute infection

Dr Harry Noyes - University of Liverpool
Trypanosomiasis caused by Trypanosoma congolense is a major constraint on cattle production in Africa. We have mapped 5 QTL in mice and 10 in cattle that are associated with response to infection. The challenge is now to identify the genes underlying these QTL. We are using gene expression microarray, tiling array and SNP data to identify associations with infection and visualising this data in the context of known gene networks to identify those which are involved in the response to infection as well as the networks that respond differently to infection in susceptible and resistant animals.


Cytokine gene discovery in fish by in silico analysis - Dr Chris Secombes
Many homologues of known mammalian cytokines are known to exist in fish. However, cytokines with no obvious homologues are also apparent, whilst some mammalian genes, such as those belonging to the Th2 cytokine cluster, have not been found. Whilst a complex cytokine network is clearly present in fish, particular duplications may have led to fish specific or tetrapod/higher vertebrate specific genes arising in different vertebrate classes. This talk will illustrate this by analysis of cytokine genes of the classical proinflammatory cascade, and the interferon gamma locus.

Making sense of cellular interactions in mucosal tissues - Dr Michael Bailey – University of Bristol

In the post-genomic era, we are now in a position to make direct, functional comparisons between immunological mechanisms in different species, since direct, molecular equivalences can be demonstrated. So, studies of the behaviour of CD4+ T-cells in the intestinal mucosa of the pig are relevant to humans, since the evolutionary relationships between the molecules can be determined. The level of immunogical organisation of the pig intestinal mucosa is more obvious than that of humans or rodents, and the impact of commensal flora after birth is more pronounced. Using multiple, fluorochrome-tagged monoclonal antibodies allows studies of the interactions between cells in this tissue.

 
Exploiting innate immunity to improve the health and performance of pigs. - Dr  Stephen Bishop, Div. Genetics and Genomics Roslin Institute (Edinburgh)
Understanding the genetic control of innate immunity in domestic animals is of fundamental scientific interest and strategically important. We have demonstrated that several easily measured innate immune traits, e.g. white blood cells counts and acute phase protein concentrations, are both heritable and genetically related to performance in growing pigs. Such measurements may provide the means of improving the health and performance of animals in situations where disease problems are difficult to define. This talk will outline this strategy and describe our approaches to utilising SNP markers to attempt to locate the genes underlying variability in innate immune measurements.


Animal health in the post-genomics era