Immune response of chickens with aIBDV infection by high-throughput sequencing in chickens

Infectious bursal disease (IBD) can result in significant immunosuppression and bursal damage in 3-6 week chickens. To investigate the role of important genes from chicken during IBD virus (IBDV) infection, Jinghong laying hens were used to clarify the pathways of immune response. The transcriptional profiles of cecal tonsil of chickens were performed by high-throughput sequencing at the first day and third day post IBDV infection (dpi) and the transcriptional levels of three immunity-related genes, namely IPMK, TAB3, and ZC3H12A, were confirmed in vitro by qPCR. The results showed that 1731 differential genes were obtained in the IBDV-infected group compared to the control group at 1 dpi. Among these, genes related to 229 immune functions and 15 immune pathways were differentially expressed. 2550 differential genes were obtained at 3 dpi, and genes associated with 289 immunological functions and 14 immune pathways were found to have variable expression. According to the findings of GO and KEGG analyses, IBDV infection triggered numerous immune response processes in the cecal tonsil of chicken, including TGF pathway and MAPK pathway. QPCR results in vitro revealed that the mRNA levels of IPMK, TAB3, and ZC3H12A were decreased at 6 h, and up-regulated as time goes on to 36 h during IBDV infection in HD11 cells. In summary, the results established the groundwork for future research on the relationship between IBDV infection and host immune molecules. Further research contributes to the role of immunity-related genes during IBDV infection and provides the effective prevention and control strategy to viral infection.