Abstract
Coccidiosis is an important intestinal parasitic disease that causes great economic losses to the global poultry production industry. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are long non-coding RNAs that play important roles in various infectious diseases and inflammatory responses. However, the expression profiles and functions of circRNAs during Eimeria tenella (E. tenella) infection remain unclear. In this study, high-throughput sequencing was carried out to detect circRNAs in chicken cecal tissues from the control (JC), resistant (JR), and susceptible (JS) groups on day 4.5 postinfection (pi), respectively. A total of 104 circRNAs were differentially expressed, including 47 circRNAs between the JS and JC groups, 38 between the JR and JS groups, and 19 between the JR and JC groups. Functional analyses indicated that these differentially expressed circRNAs were involved in pathways related to E. tenella infection; the adaptive immune response was enriched in the JS vs JC group, the NF-kappa B signaling and natural killer cell-mediated cytotoxicity pathways were enriched in the JS vs JC and JR vs JC groups, while the B cell receptor signaling pathway was enriched in only the JR vs JC group. Moreover, the coexpression network of differentially expressed circRNAs and mRNAs suggested that circRNA2202 and circRNA0759 associated with DTX1 in the JS vs JC group, circRNA4338 associated with VPREB3 and CXCL13L3 in the JR vs JC group, and circRNA2612 associated with IL8L1 and F2RL2 in the JR vs JS group were involved in the immune response upon E. tenella infection. In conclusion, our results provide valuable information on the circRNAs involved in the progression of chicken E. tenella infection and advance our understanding of the circRNA regulatory mechanisms of host resistance and susceptibility to E. tenella infection in chickens.
Highlights
Avian coccidiosis is an intestinal parasitic disease caused by Eimeria protozoa and hinders the development of the global poultry industry (Shirley and Lillehoj, 2012)
Research on the selection of broiler chicken breeds or strains naturally resistant to coccidiosis has been on the way
Johnson and Edgar (1982) reported early that the genetic variability of chickens could affect the resistance and susceptibility to acute cecal coccidiosis (ACC) and confirmed that resistant and susceptible lines of Auburn Strain Leghorn resulted in a sixfold difference in the ACC mortality rate
Summary
Avian coccidiosis is an intestinal parasitic disease caused by Eimeria protozoa and hinders the development of the global poultry industry (Shirley and Lillehoj, 2012). The global poultry industry has annual economic losses of up to $3 billion due to coccidiosis. E. tenella parasitizes the chicken cecum, mainly causing bleeding of the cecum epithelium and bloody stools (Yu et al, 2019). Drug resistance issues and violations of antibiotic bans have attracted much attention (Xie et al, 2020). In this regard, selecting breeds and lines with natural resistance to coccidiosis based on the genetic variability of chickens and genes related to resistance is an effective, long-term prevention strategy (Kim et al, 2009). Broiler breeders with an efficient innate immune response are more resistant to E. tenella (Swaggerty et al, 2011), and a novel selected mean based on a higher phenotype of some pro-inflammatory mediators was formed to produce broilers that are naturally more resistant to E. tenella (Swaggerty et al, 2015)
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