Concordant expression pattern across multiple immune tissues of commercial broilers in response to avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC)

In this study, RNA-seq gene expression data were obtained for three different immune tissues (bone marrow, thymus, and bursa) at two time points from birds with three phenotypes (non-infected, resistant, and susceptible birds). A total of 380 significant differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were commonly expressed in each of the three tissues in the contrast of susceptible vs. non-infected birds at 5 days post-infection (dpi) and 106 significant DEGs were shared in susceptible vs. resistant birds at 5 dpi. For the co-expressed DEGs, a relatively high consistency in expression pattern was identified in the three tissues for the two contrasts. These co-expressed DEGs were involved in the biological process of response to stimulus, regulation of cell proliferation, signal transduction, and immune system. Moreover, three gene networks were identified for the co-expressed DEGs, showing the activation of the humoral immune response, cell survival, growth and death were the concordant response for the three lymphocyte tissues. Several potential biomarker genes, HPGD, PROX1, FOSL2, E2F1, and ANP32A were found, which may have critical functions in resistant birds to resist APEC infection. Taken together, this study provides a novel insight that may elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying host response to systemic APEC infection, as well as enhances the probability of advancement in biomedical research.