Study on the mechanism of Mycoplasma gallisepticum infection on chicken tracheal mucosa injury

Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) is a pathogenic microorganism that causes serious harm to the poultry industry. It is mainly adsorbed on the cilia and mucosa of respiratory epithelial cells, causing tracheal mucosal damage or cilia loss, resulting in chronic respiratory disease. In order to study the effect of MG infection on chicken tracheal mucosa injury and explore its possible mechanism, specific pathogen-free chickens were challenged with MG wild-type strain MG-HY. Then, transcriptome sequencing analysis was performed to study the mechanism of MG tracheal mucosal damage. During infection, MG localizes and proliferates in the chicken trachea, and induces mucosal damage. A total of 3112 significantly (P MG infection causes a persistent inflammatory response by increasing the expression of immune response genes. The ERK-MLCK signalling pathway activated by MG infection regulates tight junction proteins in the tracheal mucosa. These data provide a basis for future prevention and treatment studies to control MG infection.