RNA-seq of blood samples from bovines immunized with a multicomponent recombinant vaccine against cattle tick.. RNA-seq of blood samples from bovines immunized with a multicomponent recombinant vaccine against cattle tick.

Tick infestations by Rhipicephalus microplus, the cattle tick, cause enormous losses to health and animal production. Ticks induce immune response in their hosts; therefore their immunobiological control is feasible. The available anti-tick vaccines display variable efficacy and short-lived, encouraging the search for new protective antigens. The identification of important genes in tick parasitism may indicate protective antigens useful to compose an anti-tick vaccine. We have developed and tested so far four recombinant salivary antigens as a multicomponent anti-tick vaccine in tick-susceptible bovines (Holstein breed). The challenge with R. microplus larvae displayed that tick infestation in vaccinated bovines was significantly reduced. In order to elucidate the molecular mechanisms trigged after immunisation and during infestation, RNA-seq data of peripheral blood from vaccinated and control animals were obtained in different periods of the immunisation trial. A total of 24 mRNA-seq Illumina libraries (single-end, 100 bp) were analysed to identify differential gene expression according to the experimental condition.

微小牛蜱（Rhipicephalus microplus）侵染会对牲畜健康与畜牧生产造成巨额损失。蜱虫可在宿主体内诱发免疫应答，因此通过免疫生物学手段实现蜱虫防控具备可行性。当前已有的抗蜱疫苗效果参差不齐且保护时效有限，这推动了新型保护性抗原的研发探索。鉴定蜱虫寄生过程中的关键功能基因，可为筛选用于抗蜱疫苗研发的保护性抗原提供思路。本团队此前已开发并验证了由四种重组唾液抗原组成的多组分抗蜱疫苗，并在蜱虫易感的荷斯坦奶牛（Holstein breed）中开展了相关试验。通过微小牛蜱幼虫攻毒试验发现，接种疫苗的奶牛体内蜱虫侵染负荷显著降低。为阐明免疫接种后及蜱虫侵染过程中触发的分子机制，本研究在免疫试验的不同时间节点采集了免疫组与对照组动物的外周血样本，并获取了其RNA测序（RNA-seq）数据。本研究共分析了24个mRNA测序（mRNA-seq）Illumina文库（单端测序，读长100 bp），以根据实验分组条件筛选差异表达基因。