Response of bovine mammary tissue to experimental Staphylococcus aureus infection experiment 3.. Bos taurus

Mastitis in dairy cattle can result from infection by a range of microorganisms but is principally caused by coliform bacteria and gram positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The former species are often acquired by environmental contamination while S. aureus is particularly problematic due to its resistance to antibiotic treatments and ability to reside within mammary tissue in a chronic, subclinical state. The transcriptional and translational responses within bovine mammary epithelial tissue subjected to intramammary challenge with S. aureus are poorly characterised, particularly at the earliest stages of infection. A Bovine Innate Immune Microarray was employed to measure changes in gene expression occurring in bovine mammary tissues sampled from three dairy cows after a brief and graded intramammary challenge with a virulent strain of S. aureus. Keywords: dose response, disease state analysis Overall design: Animal infected with vaying doses of S. aureus in different udder locations were compared to a single control uninfected tissue and to the other 2 locations at each infective dose. Dye swaps were performed for each comparison.