DEVELOPING PREDICTIVE MODELS FOR IDENTIFYING PIGS WITH SUPERIOR IMMUNE RESPONSE AND IMPROVED FOOD SAFETY

The current specific aims are: (1) profile the in vivo whole blood RNA and cytokine response to Salmonella Typhimurium (ST) infection in animals with high and low fecal shedding phenotypes; (2) using the same animals in Aim 1, profile the in vitro whole blood RNA and cytokine response to exposure to the general inflammatory endotoxin, lipopolysaccaride; (3) annotate response profiles for common expression patterns and functional themes and develop regulatory network information on response to inflammatory stimuli; and (4) test existing and develop improved predictive models for identifying pigs with decreased fecal shedding at multiple stages of post-infection pro and in naïve pigs.