Quantitative genetic and functional genomics approaches to investigating parasite disease resistance and protective immune mechanisms in avian coccidiosis.

A major challenge for the commercial poultry production is controlling enteric disease-causing pathogens in the absence of prophylactic drugs. Although traditional genetic approaches have contributed to enhanced efficiency of poultry production and increased the ability of the industry to provide safe, high quality, and low cost meat products to consumers, economic losses due to enteric diseases remains a significant problem. Therefore, there is a need to develop alternative control strategies against poultry enteric pathogens of economic importance. Recent advances in molecular genetics and functional genomics are now allowing for rapid progress in understanding the molecular mechanisms of disease resistance against major infectious agents of poultry. It is anticipated that identifying the nature of host-pathogen interactions will facilitate the development of novel vaccines and therapeutics. In this paper, recent progress in identifying genes that influence resistance to avian coccidiosis, the most economically important disease of poultry, will be discussed. This work provides an excellent example of how the integration of new molecular genetic and functional genomics tools increases our knowledge of the mechanism of genetic resistance to complex diseases.