A homeostasis hypothesis of avian influenza resistance in chickens

Avian influenza caused significant damages to the poultry industry, efforts have been made to reveal the disease mechanisms as well as mechanisms of disease resistance. Here, by investigating two chicken breeds with distinct responses to avian influenza virus (AIV), Leghorn GB2 and Fayoumi M43, we compared their differences in genome, methylation and transcriptome. Except for MX1 involved direct acting antiviral mechanism, we found that in both methylation and transcriptome levels the more AIV resistant breed Fayoumi showed less variations compared to White Leghorn after AIV challenging. Fayoumi also showed better consistency between the changes in methylation and changes in transcriptome level. Our results suggested a homeostasis hypothesis of avian influenza resistance, with Fayoumi better maintaining homeostasis both in epigenetic and gene expression levels. DNA methylation profiles of two highly inbred chicken lines, Leghorn and Fayoumi, which were generated by deep sequencing, using Illumina GAII.