In-Vitro Characterization of <em>chIFITMs</em> of Aseel and Kadaknath Chicken Breeds Against Newcastle Disease Virus Infection

Abstract

Newcastle disease (ND) is a highly contagious and usually causes severe illness that affects Aves all over the world, including domestic poultry. Depending on the virus's virulence, it can impact the nervous, respiratory, and digestive systems and causes up to 100% mortality. The chIFITM genes are activated in response to viral infection. The current study was conducted to quantify the mRNA of chIFITM genes in vitro in response to ND viral infection. It also examined its ability to inhibit ND virus replication in Chicken Embryo Fibroblast (CEF) cells of Aseel and Kadaknath breeds. Results from the study showed that the expression of all chIFITM genes was significantly upregulated throughout the period in the infected CEF cells of both breeds compared to uninfected CEF cells. In CEF cells of the Kadaknath breed, elevated levels of expression of the chIFITM3 gene dramatically reduced the ND viral growth and the viral load was 60% lower than in CEF cells of the Aseel breed. The expression level of the chIFITMs in Kadaknath ranged from 2.39 to 11.68 log2 folds higher than that of control CEFs, and was consistently (p&amp;lt;0.01) higher than Aseel CEFs. Similar to this, IFN-&amp;gamma; gene expresses strongly quickly and peaks at 13.9 log2 fold at 48 hpi. The result suggests that the Kadaknath chicken breed may have a higher level of disease tolerance compared to the Aseel chicken.

Decoding the fibromelanosis locus complex chromosomal rearrangement of black-bone chicken: genetic differentiation, selective sweeps and protein-coding changes in Kadaknath chicken

“…The Fayoumi chicken breed is relatively resistant to Newcastle disease virus (NDV) compared to Leghorns (Deist et al, 2017) and potentially shares ancestry with Indian chicken breeds (Eltanany and Hemeda, 2016). Earlier studies have shown that the Kadaknath has a high level of disease tolerance against Newcastle disease, also known as Ranikhet disease, compared to other chicken breeds (Kokate et al, 2017;Gumasta et al, 2021;Malarmathi et al, 2023). Along with resistance against Newcastle disease, it has been reported that the Kadaknath breed is less sensitive to coccidial infection (Thakur et al, 2015).…”