Comparative innate immunity in domestic large animals

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Infectious respiratory and enteric diseases are major problems for producers of pigs, cattle, horses and other livestock. Their impacts on health increase production costs and antibiotic use, and are detrimental to animal welfare. Disease resistance involves innate and adaptive immune functions that are influenced by various genetic and environmental factors. The purpose of my research program is to identify and characterize proteins that recognize common patterns on the surfaces of infectious pathogens of large animals. These proteins, including collagenous lectins, play a key role in innate disease resistance in humans and animals, and deficiencies have been shown to increase the risk and severity of infections. I have identified some of these proteins in pigs and found genetic variations that are more frequent in pigs with common economically important infectious diseases such as pneumonia and enteritis. Much less is known about these proteins in other domesticated large animals. This research will better define the role that pattern recognition molecules play in innate disease resistance in livestock. We will identify which proteins play a role in innate disease resistance in pigs, cattle and horses. We will also assess the role genetic defects in these innate immune factors play in the wide variation in resistance to infectious diseases observed in livestock. These studies will help to further explain how genetic or acquired alterations in innate immune functions influence infection and inflammatory disease development, with a long-term applied goal of developing novel genetic markers for use in selection panels along with traditional parameters used in the livestock industry. These comparative studies may also benefit humans since they will improve understanding of the complex molecular pathways involved in innate disease resistance and elucidate genetic mechanisms regulating innate disease resistance common to humans and production animals.