Temporal gene expression analysis of the Brucella melitensis-infected bovine Peyer's patch. Bos taurus

In a time course study, we characterized global gene expression profile of B. melitensis-infected bovine Peyer patches in the first 4 h p.i. Microarray analysis revealed that 2,916 bovine genes were detected as differentially expressed (z-score p < 0.025) in loops inoculated with virulent B. melitensis 16M compared with controls between 15 min and 4 h post-infection. From these genes, 2,286 (78%) were up- and 630 (22%) were down-regulated. Specific genes and biological processes identified in this study will further help elucidate how both host and Brucella interact during the early infectious process to the eventual benefit of the pathogen and to the detriment of the naïve host. Overall design: Microarrays were used to examine the transcriptional profiles of bovine intestinal Peyer patches infected with wild type Brucella melitensis 16M across five time points (15 min, 30 min, 1, 2 and 4 hours). Intestinal loops inoculated with cell culture medium were used as a control. Experiments were performed in quadruplicate (bovine ligated ileal loops surgeries were performed with four calves), generating a total of 40 arrays.