Does an immune response at the Ileum contribute to severity and development of helminth-diarrhoea in Merino sheep (ileum)?

Purpose: To investigaet whether an inflammatory immune response at the Ileum can contribute to development and severity of diarrhoea in Merino sheep that are prone and not prone to develop diarrhoea. Methods:Transcriptomes in the Ileum (third part of small intestine) of Merino sheep were analyzed using RNASeq. Functional enrichment of DEGs using GO terms in biological processes and KEGG pathways were studied. PPI (protein-protein interaction) network and sub-network were studied using clusterONE plugin in Cytoscape. Result and conclusion: Although Ileum in not a primary site of helminth (species under study in our experiment), the results indicated that an inflammatory immune response can contribute to development and severity of diarrhoea. The low-diarrhoea animals did not show any signs of immune/inflammatory response. The genes with important roles in the responses to helminth infection could be targeted in breeding programs to prevent diarrhoea. Overall design: Four biological replicates in each of High-diarrhoea (HD) and Low-diarrhoea (LD) group were used. LD group was used as a control group.