Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853
Performing Department
CLINICAL SCIENCE
Non Technical Summary
These studies will examine the chronological steps involved in the development of equine recurrent airway obstruction (RAO). This lung inflammatory condition, which resembles human asthma, develops in certain horses exposed to hay. The condition limits the athleticism of horses and contributes to their wastage. In this proposal, the role of the airway epithelium in initiating and in maintaining the pulmonary inflammation would be examined. Specifically the expression of genes known to produce inflammatory proteins would be measured in horses exposed to hay for defined periods of time. Additionally, the reactivity of these airway cells, isolated and grown in cell culture, to hay dust components would be studied to determine the specificity of the hay dust-epithelial cell reactions.
Animal Health Component
40%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
60%
Applied
40%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The first objective is to characterize, ex vivo, the time-dependent changes in the gene expression of chemokines in the bronchial epithelial cells of RAO-prone and control horses exposed acutely and chronically to dusty hay. The gene expression would be temporally-related to pulmonary neutrophil influx. The second objective is to characterize, in vitro, the specificity of particulate-airway epithelial cell interactions in cell cultures established from bronchial biopsies obtained from RAO-prone and control horses during asymptomatic and diseased periods.
Project Methods
Epithelial cells from RAO-prone and control horses studied when asymptomatic and after having been stabled and exposed to dusty hay for hours, days and weeks would be obtained endoscopically. The gene expression of IL-8, GM-CSF, MIP-2 and ICAM-1 (neutrophil chemoattractants) would be assayed using kinetic PCR techniques. Primary epithelial cell cultures, established from biopsies and incubated with hay dust or inert particulates would be assayed for their chemokine expression and antigen presenting capabilities. Thus this project examines the gene expression of chemokines as a function of dust exposure duration (ex vivo studies) or as a function of the antigen type (in vitro studies).