Changes in the Cytokine and Toll-Like Receptor Gene Expression Following Infection of Indigenous and Commercial...

A comparative study of cytokine and toll-like receptor (TLR) mRNA expression in 3 weeks old indigenous and commercial chickens infected with a very virulent strain of Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) was performed using a custom-made microarray chip. In uninfected indigenous chickens, the basal levels of interleukin (IL) 15 were lower and IL 16 was higher than their commercial counterparts. In the IBDV infected indigenous chickens, only IL16 gene expression was down regulated, while TLR3 expression was up regulated significantly. In the IBDV infected commercial chickens IL15, IL16 and TLR3 were down regulated. But, IL1-β, IL2, IL8, IL12, IL17, interferon (IFN)-α and β were significantly increased compared with the control. In IBDV infected indigenous chickens, IL15, IFN-γ, beta-defensin and TLR3 were up regulated compared to virus-infected commercial chickens. The results suggested that up regulation of TLR3, a ligand for double-stranded (ds) RNA probably could account for the possible clinical resistance in these birds. There was a 5.2 fold difference by quantitative real-time RT-PCR between indigenous and commercial chickens in TLR3 mRNA expression. Therefore, TLR3, a receptor for dsRNA could be a putative molecule that could play a role in differential innate and adaptive immune responses to IBDV in commercial and indigenous chickens.