Investigate the role of avian viral diseases in the modification of host epigenetic factors and translational control

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To establish the tools and resources that are specific for research into the field of avian epigenetics. Whilst many of the proteins that are crucial are highly conserved and therefore cross-react with tools developed for human/mouse research, many proteins will be different enough to not be conserved. The techniques that will be used to investigate this include MeDIP (methylated DNA immunoprecipitation) and bisulphate sequencing to investigate methylation status of the DNA. I will also develop further Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and qPCR analysis along with ChIP-on-chip or ChIP-seq (ChIP, coupled with deep-sequencing analysis). Focus these efforts onto avian diseases, such as MD to give a high fidelity epigenetic map of primary tumours and cell lines of both the viral and host chromatin. Also apply these techniques to untransformed cells. These can be taken from peripheral blood through cell sorting, or by looking at the differentiation of stem cells. The elucidation of genes and regions that are influenced by the viral pathogens will allow a more targeted approach to understand the changes in translation and epigenetics marks by investigating changes in translation of specific initiation factors, elongation of poly-A modifications on these genes.

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