High-throughput gene expression analysis in pigs as model for respiratory infections

Animal models are essential in understanding the mechanisms involved in human infectious disease and for the development of effective prevention and treatment strategies. It is increasingly realized that large animal models like the pig are exceptionally human like and serve as an excellent model for disease and inflammation. Pigs are fully susceptible to human influenza, and have been demonstrated to be involved in influenza evolution and ecology. Pigs share many similarities with humans regarding lung physiology and innate immune cell infiltration of the respiratory system and thus seem to be an obvious large animal model for respiratory infections. This study aimed at providing a better understanding of the involvement of circulating non-coding RNA and innate immune factors in porcine blood leukocytes during influenza virus infection. By employing the pig as a model we were able to perform highly controlled experimental infections and to study changes of symptoms, viral titer, and expression of microRNAs/mRNAs as the influenza infection progresses in time, generating information that would be difficult to obtain from human patients.