Delivery of CpG-ODN against viral infections in chickens as an immunostimulant and vaccine adjuvant

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An increasing emergence of diseases in animals has focused attention on immune based methods of disease protection. Vaccines are a well known method to direct the immune system for improved disease protection, but they are not available for some diseases and are not effective when an immediate protective effect is required, e.g., in the face of an disease outbreak. Therefore, alternate strategies to induce protective immunity are required. The "first responder" or innate component of the immune system detects infection by recognizing features characteristic of infectious organisms as "danger" signals. This quickly triggers a response capable of limiting a variety of infections (unlike vaccines which protect only against the disease for which they were developed). One of these danger signals is a pattern characteristic of bacterial DNA, known as CpG motifs. This pattern can be synthesized in small pieces of DNA known as oligonucleotides (ODN), which are suitable for administration to animals. The proposed research program will determine if CpG-ODN can stimulate protective immune responses against viral infections in chickens. I will administer CpG ODN to chicks while still in the egg, thus avoiding the complicating effects of other environmental stimuli on the immune system. I will look for evidence of activation of innate immunity, such as the turning on genes important for immune response coordination, and functions such as production of antiviral activity. I intend to demonstrate that delivery of CpG-ODN to the respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts, which are the sites of infection in most cases, will stimulate protective immune responses. Previously, I have demonstrated a significant protective effect of CpG-ODN against lethal bacterial infections in neonatal and adult chickens, and proposed research program will explore immunostimulatory effect of CpG-ODN against viral infections in chickens. Since many innate immune responses are similar in a variety of species, the results are significant not only for poultry, but are also applicable in other areas of veterinary and human medicine.