Proteic diet and transcriptome of tissues associated with the immune response of sheep infected with Haemonchus contortus

Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate the influence of proteic diet level on the regulation of gene expression associated with the immune response to Haemonchus contortus. This work is part of the project approved in the universal/2016 CNPq (420373/2016-0). The experiment will be conducted at the Laboratório de Nutrição Animal (LANA) of the Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA) using 20 male sheep, not previous infected by Haemonchus contortus, which will be distributed in 4 treatments: sheep not infected with low (10%) and high (16%) levels of protein of diet and sheep infected with H. contortus with low and high levels of protein of diet. The animal's slaughter will be performed 30 days after the artificial infection with 10000 L3 / animal to collect samples of the thymus, spleen, abdomen lymph nodes and bone marrow. The variables such as feed intake, live weight, blood count, metabolic profile, cytokines, IgA, IgG and worms count will be related to the results of transcriptome from the extraction of RNA from the obtained tissues and amplification of the cDNA through PCR. The analysis of nutrigenomics will allow us to answer how the nutritional intervention can influence the sheep genome in response to H. contortus infection in coexpression networks in order to subsidize future programs of genomic selection of sheep resistant to endoprasites, as well as correct nutritional management as alternative and / or complementary forms to the use of drugs to control verminoses in the herds, under the paradigm of sustainable production of ruminants associated with animal welfare.