Pattern recognition receptor genes expression profiling in indigenous chickens of India and White Leghorn

Pattern recognition receptors (PRR) such as Toll-like receptors, NOD-like receptors, RIG-I helicase receptors, and C-type lectin receptors play a critical role in innate immunity as a first line of defense against invading pathogens through recognition of pathogen and/or damage-associated molecular patterns. Genetic makeup of birds is known to play a role in resistance or susceptibility to various infectious diseases. Therefore, the present study was carried out to elucidate the differential expression of PRR and some of the cytokine genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of indigenous chicken breeds such as Ghagus and Nicobari and an exotic chicken breed, White Leghorn (WLH). The stability of expression of reference genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 3 breeds was first determined using NormFinder and BestKeeper programs. NormFinder determined B2M and G6PDH reference genes as the best combination with stability value of 0.38. Out of total 14 genes studied, expression of ten genes was found to be significantly different among 3 breeds after normalization with these reference genes. Ghagus breed showed higher level of expression of TLR1LB, TLR7, NOD1, NOD5, B-Lec, IFNβ, IL1β, and IL8 genes when compared to Nicobari breed. Further, Ghagus showed higher expression of TLR1LB, MDA5, LGP2, B-Lec, IL1β, and IL8 genes as compared to WLH breed. Higher expression of LGP2 and MDA5 genes was observed in Nicobari compared to the WLH breed while higher expression of TLR7, NOD1, NOD5, and IFNβ genes was observed in WLH as compared to Nicobari breed. No difference was observed in the expression of TLR1LA, TLR3, B-NK, and IFNα genes among 3 breeds. Study revealed significant breed effect in expression profile of PRR and some of the cytokine genes and Ghagus breed seems to have better expression profile of these genes linked to the innate immunity when compared to the WLH and Nicobar breeds.