Innate immune sensing of viral DNA by avian macrophages

鸡是全球重要的食物来源，因此需要预防传染病。仅英国的家禽业每年就生产了100多万吨鸡肉和数十亿个鸡蛋供消费。如此庞大的养殖场规模要求我们了解哪些疾病对这些鸡的健康构成威胁，以及我们如何应对这些威胁。疫苗的使用是帮助保护鸡免受新城疫、传染性支气管炎、鸡痘和马立克氏病等感染的主要方法之一。为了有效地改进现有疫苗或设计针对新出现的和人畜共患感染的新疫苗，重要的是了解鸡免疫系统工作的基本机制以及它如何与病原体相互作用。这样的研究不仅可以改进疫苗设计，还可以从整体上更好地了解免疫学和病毒学。事实上，鸟类免疫学和病毒学的研究在这两个领域都取得了一些重要的进展。在这项研究中，我们的目标是促进我们对鸡细胞如何检测细胞内错误位置的DNA存在的理解。这种错误的定位可能是感染或损伤的迹象，它会触发一种名为先天性免疫系统的警报，向受感染或受损的组织发送信号，表明有问题。这一系统对抵御感染和推动疫苗接种反应至关重要，因此了解它的工作原理将有助于抗击马立克氏病等影响全球鸡只种群的疾病。

Chickens are a globally important food source and hence require protection from infectious diseases. The poultry industry in the UK alone is responsible for the production of more than one million tonnes of chicken meat and billions of eggs every year for consumption. This vast scale of farming necessitates that we understand which diseases pose a threat to the health of these chickens and how we can counter those threats. The use of vaccines is one a primary method used to help protect chickens from infections such as Newcastle disease, infectious bronchitis, fowlpox and Marek's disease. In order to effectively improve current vaccines or design new ones against emerging and zoonotic infections it is important to understand the fundamental mechanisms by which the chicken immune system works and how it interacts with pathogens. Such studies can lead not only to improvements in vaccine design but also to a greater understanding of immunology and virology as a whole. Indeed, the study of avian immunology and virology has lead to several important advances in both fields. In this study we aim to advance our understanding of how chicken cells detect the presence of DNA in the wrong place inside the cell. Such a mis-localisation can be a sign of infection or damage that triggers an alarm called the innate immune system to send signals into the infected or damaged tissue that something is wrong. This system is critical to fight off infections and to drive vaccination responses so understanding how it works will help in the fight against diseases such as Marek's that affect global chicken populations.