2006

YEAR BOOK

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St Vincent's University Hospital & University College Dublin

Cliona O'Farrelly

Chickens to crack the code

Ever been there in the wake of a dodgy meal? Slightly feverish, exhausted and limping away from the bathroom, wondering, "What exactly did I eat?" We've all experienced gastroenteritis at some point in our lives, and the most common cause (1 in 6 cases) is a bacterium that, perversely, lives peacefully in other species but can cause havoc in the human intestine. As few as 500 are enough to cause disease in humans while chickens can carry more than 10 billion safely. How it can be passive and aggressive in different hosts is a puzzle we aim to solve.

This harmless looking bug that is potentially fatal to humans goes by the name Campylobacter jejuni . It's a gram-negative, thermophilic, microaerophilic motile bacterium, one of many Campylobacter species. As the main cause of foodborne disease and a possible cause of the Guillain-Barr� Syndrome, C.jejuni is a bug we cannot ignore. This syndrome is the most common current cause of paralysis since the eradication of polio, sometimes fatal, yet little is known about how it is caused or how to prevent it.

C.jejuni can be found in raw meat, undercooked meat, non-chlorinated water and unpasteurised milk. Incidence of this disease in humans is especially prevalent in developed countries. One hypothesis for this increased susceptibility incorporates decreased exposure through improved hygiene standards with increased variability of Campylobacter strains.

The Comparative Immunogenomics group at SVUH has developed some expertise in the study of chicken immunity. Together with our Canadian collaborators in VIDO, we aim to monitor chicken flocks during controlled C.jejuni infections. We will use gene microarrays to characterise the genetic signatures of diseased and uninfected chickens, and to determine which immune genes are switched "on" or "off" during C.jejuni colonisation. By comparing these genes in chicken and human genomes we hope to decipher how and why the same bug can behave so differently in different hosts. A more distant goal is to breed chickens that are resistant to Campylobacter colonisation.

Funded by the Dept. of Agriculture & Food through FIRM under the National Development Plan 2000-2006.

Contact: Prof Cliona O'Farrelly, Director,
Research Laboratories, St. Vincent's University Hospital, Elm Park, Dublin 4
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://ercbinfo1.ucd.ie/