Blanca Lupiani's Proposal
EMSL Project ID
23997
Abstract
Avian influenza (AI) is a major respiratory disease of poultry that has the potential to cause catastrophic losses to the commercial poultry industry worldwide. In addition, AI viruses can be transmitted to humans and are the origin of new influenza pandemics. Most avian influenza virus strains do not replicate efficiently in humans, and this was previously believed to limit the emergence of new pandemic strains. However, recent events in China, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, have raised serious concerns and challenged previous dogmas about epidemic influenza emergence. Several measures can help to minimize the global public health risk. An immediate priority is to halt further spread of epidemics in poultry populations that would reduce the opportunities for human exposure to the virus.Our long-term goal is to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in AI virus pathogenesis in order to control the spread of infection among poultry and therefore to humans. The overall objective of this application is to identify a molecular signature of AI virus infected chickens using a proteomics approach, and to correlate this host response with global gene expression profile and pathogenesis. Direct comparison of protein expression profiles of chickens infected with wild type and mutant AI virus strains can be used to explore this host-pathogen interaction. In order to accomplish this objective we propose to carry out a pilot study on the protein expression profile in lung/trachea cells of uninfected and AI infected chickens.
It is our expectation that, at the conclusion of the proposed studies, we will have established a correlation between global protein expression profile of chickens infected with wild type AI viruses and pathogenesis.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2007-03-26
End Date
2008-03-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator