Expression data of sheep exposed to Mycobacterium avium subsp. Paratuberculosis

In this study, consistent gene expression changes were analysed to identify gene-to-gene interaction and functional pathway relationships associated with the MAP exposure outcomes of either a paucibacillary or a multibacillary disease form or sheep resilient to disease. The results suggest that although groups of genes are differentially changed in the MAP exposed sheep regardless of clinical outcome, there are distinct variations in gene expression patterns between the paucibacillary and multibacillary forms of disease and of particular note was the finding that MAP exposed animals with evidence of recovery or resilience respond to MAP exposure with a pattern of gene and molecular pathway interactions distinct from those animals that progress to clinical paratuberculosis. Transcriptomic analysis was carried out on samples from all twenty of the MAP inoculated sheep and five of the control sheep at 2, 10, 18, 32 and 56 weeks post MAP inoculation. Each animal contributed 5 samples and in total 125 samples were processed using the Bovine Affymetrix® GeneChip® 3’IVT array