• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.36.1-36.14
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• 2022

Background: Since 2003, the H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) subtype has caused massive economic losses in the poultry industry in South Korea. The role of inland water bodies in avian influenza (AI) outbreaks has not been investigated. Identifying water bodies that facilitate risk pathways leading to the incursion of the HPAI virus (HPAIV) into poultry farms is essential for implementing specific precautionary measures to prevent viral transmission. Objectives: This matched case-control study (1:4) examined whether inland waters were associated with a higher risk of AI outbreaks in the neighboring poultry farms. Methods: Rivers, irrigation canals, lakes, and ponds were considered inland water bodies. The cases and controls were chosen based on the matching criteria. The nearest possible farms located within a radius of 3 km of the case farms were chosen as the control farms. The poultry farms were selected randomly, and two HPAI epidemics (H5N8 [2014-2016] and H5N6 [2016-2017]) were studied. Conditional logistic regression analysis was applied. Results: Statistical analysis revealed that inland waters near poultry farms were significant risk factors for AI outbreaks. The study speculated that freely wandering wild waterfowl and small animals contaminate areas surrounding poultry farms. Conclusions: Pet birds and animals raised alongside poultry birds on farm premises may wander easily to nearby waters, potentially increasing the risk of AI infection in poultry farms. Mechanical transmission of the AI virus occurs when poultry farm workers or visitors come into contact with infected water bodies or their surroundings. To prevent AI outbreaks in the future, poultry farms should adopt strict precautions to avoid contact with nearby water bodies and their surroundings.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.60-74
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• 2017

To facilitate prevention of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), a GIS is widely used for monitoring, investigating epidemics, managing HPAI-infected farms, and eradicating the disease. After the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2010 and 2011, the government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) established the GIS-based Korean Animal Health Integrated System (KAHIS) to avert livestock epidemics, including HPAI. However, the KAHIS is not sufficient for controlling HPAI outbreaks due to lack of responsibility in fieldwork, such as sterilization of HPAI-infected poultry farms and regions, control of infected animal movement, and implementation of an eradication strategy. An outbreak prediction model to support efficient HPAI control in the ROK is proposed here, constructed via analysis of HPAI outbreak patterns in the ROK. The results show that 82% of HPAI outbreaks occurred in Jeolla and Chungcheong Provinces. The density of poultry farms in these regions were $2.2{\pm}1.1/km^2$ and $4.2{\pm}5.6/km^2$, respectively. In addition, reared animal numbers ranged between 6,537 and 24,250 individuals in poultry farms located in HPAI outbreak regions. Following identification of poultry farms in HPAI outbreak regions, an HPAI outbreak prediction model was designed using factors such as the habitat range for migratory birds(HMB), freshwater system characteristics, and local road networks. Using these factors, poultry farms which reared 6,500-25,000 individuals were filtered and compared with number of farms actually affected by HPAI outbreaks in the ROK. The HPAI prediction model shows that 90.0% of the number of poultry farms and 54.8% of the locations of poultry farms overlapped between an actual HPAI outbreak poultry farms reported in 2014 and poultry farms estimated by HPAI outbreak prediction model in the present study. These results clearly show that the HPAI outbreak prediction model is applicable for estimating HPAI outbreak regions in ROK.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.441-458
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• 2023

The poultry industry, which produces excellent sources of protein, suffers enormous economic damage from diseases. To solve this problem, research is being conducted on the early detection of infection according to the behavioral characteristics of poultry. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential of a non-movement behavior observation method to detect sick chickens. Forty 1-day-old Ross 308 males were used in the experiments, and an isolator equipped with an Internet Protocol (IP) camera was fabricated for observation. The chickens were inoculated with Salmonella enterica serovar Gallinarum A18-GCVP-014, the causative agent of fowl typhoid (FT), at 14 days of age, which is a vulnerable period for FT infection. The chickens were continuously observed with an IP camera for 2 weeks after inoculation, chickens that did not move for more than 30 minutes were detected and marked according to the algorithm. FT infection was confirmed based on clinical symptoms, analysis of cardiac, spleen and liver lesion scores, pathogen re-isolation, and serological analysis. As a result, clinical symptoms were first observed four days after inoculation, and dead chickens were observed on day six. Eleven days after inoculation, the number of clinical symptoms gradually decreased, indicating a state of recovery. For lesion scores, dead chickens scored 3.57 and live chickens scored 2.38. Pathogens were re-isolated in 37 out of 40 chickens, and hemagglutination test was positive in seven out of 26 chickens. The IP camera applied with the algorithm detected about 83% of the chickens that died in advance through non-movement behavior observation. Therefore, observation of non-movement behavior is one of the ways to detect infected chickens in advance, and it appears to have potential for the development of remote broiler management system.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 1981

A study was conducted to determine whether the vaccination programs for the control of New castle disease (ND) would affect the immune status of birds against the disease. Twenty-six poultry flocks in the epizootic area of ND were surveyed to investigate the level of urn antibody against ND virus and the programs used for the vaccination of birds. The mortality rates and vaccination status of birds during the epizootic of ND were also examined in the infected poultry flocks to elucidate the immune effect against the epizootic with particular regard to various vaccination programs used in the field. The results obtained are summerized as follows: 1. Of 26 poultry flocks investigated, 22 flocks were immunized with live and killed vaccines, their haemagglutination-inhibition (HI) antibody titer being 146 and 50, respectively. Among 22 farms using live and killed vaccines two flocks which showed the lowest HI titer of 10 and 23 had the disease later on. However, no cases of ND were recorded in the killed vaccine groups, although their HI titers were in the range of 38 to 64. 2. Of 14 infected flecks, one flock was not vaccmated against ND while all the remaining 13 flocks were vaccinated against the disease, of which 8 flocks were vaccinated with live vaccine only and the other 5 flocks with both live and killed vaccines. The mortality rate of 8 infected flocks which had been vaccinated with only live vaccine was as high as 32.5% while that of 5 flocks with both live and killed vaccines was as low as 5.1%. 3. It was found that in majority of flocks B$_1$vaccine was used via drinking water and in a few flocks the vaccine was administered via intramuscular route or method of dipping mouth, nose and eye of birds into vaccine solution.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.278-285
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• 2012

Poultry products are an important source of Salmonella enterica. An effective way to reduce food poisoning due to Salmonella would be to breed chickens more resistant to infection. Unfortunately host responses to Salmonella are complex with many factors involved. To learn more about responses to Salmonella in young chickens of 2 wk old, a cDNA Microarray containing 13,319 probes was performed to compare gene expression profiles between two chicken groups under control and Salmonella infected conditions. Newly hatched chickens were orally infected with S. enterica serovar Enteritidis. Since the intestine is one of the important barriers the bacteria encounter after oral inoculation, intestine gene expression was investigated at 2 wk old. There were 588 differentially expressed genes detected, of which 276 were known genes, and of the total number 266 were up-regulated and 322 were down-regulated. Differences in gene expression between the two chicken groups were found in control as well as Salmonella infected conditions indicating a difference in the intestine development between the two chicken groups which might be linked to the difference in Salmonella susceptibility. The differential expressions of 4 genes were confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR and the results indicated that the expression changes of these genes were generally consistent with the results of GeneChips. The findings in this study have lead to the identification of novel genes and possible cellular pathways, which are host dependent.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.9-19
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• 2020

Avian influenza (AI) viruses are highly contagious viruses that infect many bird species and are zoonotic. Ducks are resistant to the deadly and highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) and remain asymptomatic to the low pathogenic avian influenza virus (LPAIV). In this study, we identified common differentially expressed genes (DEGs) after a reanalysis of previous transcriptomic data for the HPAIV and LPAIV infected duck lung cells. Microarray datasets from a previous study were reanalyzed to identify common target genes from DEGs and their biological functions. A total of 731 and 439 DEGs were identified in HPAIV- and LPAIV-infected duck lung cells, respectively. Of these, 227 genes were common to cells infected with both viruses, in which 193 genes were upregulated and 34 genes were downregulated. Functional annotation of common DEGs revealed that translation related gene ontology (GO) terms were enriched, including ribosome, protein metabolism, and gene expression. REACTOME analyses also identified pathways for protein and RNA metabolism as well as for tissue repair, including collagen biosynthesis and modification, suggesting that AIVs may evade the host defense system by suppressing host translation machinery or may be suppressed before being exported to the cytosol for translation. AIV infection also increased collagen synthesis, showing that tissue lesions by virus infection may be mediated by this pathway. Further studies should focus on these genes to clarify their roles in AIV pathogenesis and their possible use in AIV therapeutics.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.563-573
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• 2000

Periodic outbreaks of Newcastle disease (ND) caused by velogenic viscerotropic ND virus (vvNDV) has become a major concern in Korea nowadays. Throughout last epidemic, the winter season in 2000, most chicken flocks infected early, under 2-4 weeks of age, showed high mortality up to 50-100%. Serum samples collected from 201 breeder, 284 layer and 112 broiler chicken flocks were examined to evaluate the efficacy of various vaccination methods and programs routinely used for mass vaccination in the field poultry farms. Despite repeated live vaccination, most poultry flocks vaccinated by drinking water route using nipple water supply system failed to produce solid active immune response to NDV during the growing time. In the present study, we applied the spray vaccination technique using Ulvavac or Desvac sprayer to the experimental poultry flocks and examined the efficacy of live vaccination effects induced by it under field condition. Measurable antibody to NDV as well as early protection against vvNDV challenge were found in poultry flocks vaccinated by spray route. Further, we did not found significant post vaccination reactions caused by spray vaccination if properly administered. These data indicate that the spray vaccination will be safe and reliable mass vaccination method for the prevention of ND.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.49-57
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• 2016

In this study, a thermal hydrolysis technology was used to treat the poultry carcasses that were killed due to Avian Influenza (AI) occurrence, as well as to determine the possibility of fueling for the resultant products. Experimental results showed that the poultry carcasses were liquefied except for sand, and showed the optimum efficiency at $190^{\circ}C$ and operating time of 60 minutes. It has been shown that liquid products obtained after thermal hydrolysis has good conditions for fuel conversion since it had high carbon contents and calorific value, as well as low ash content. In addition, it was possible to operate the thermal hydrolysis facility by using only the waste heat generated in the combustion without injecting the auxiliary fuel, and the exhaust gas generated in the combustion has a small influence on the atmosphere.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.73.1-73.16
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• 2023

Background: Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) is considered a global threat to both human health and the poultry industry. MicroRNAs (miRNA) can modulate the immune system by affecting gene expression patterns in HPAIV-infected chickens. Objectives: To gain further insights into the role of miRNAs in immune responses against H5N1 infection, as well as the development of strategies for breeding disease-resistant chickens, we characterized miRNA expression patterns in tracheal tissues from H5N1-infected Ri chickens. Methods: miRNAs expression was analyzed from two H5N1-infected Ri chicken lines using small RNA sequencing. The target genes of differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs were predicted using miRDB. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis were then conducted. Furthermore, using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, we validated the expression levels of DE miRNAs (miR-22-3p, miR-146b-3p, miR27b-3p, miR-128-3p, miR-2188-5p, miR-451, miR-205a, miR-203a, miR-21-3p, and miR-200a3p) from all comparisons and their immune-related target genes. Results: A total of 53 miRNAs were significantly expressed in the infection samples of the resistant compared to the susceptible line. Network analyses between the DE miRNAs and target genes revealed that DE miRNAs may regulate the expression of target genes involved in the transforming growth factor-beta, mitogen-activated protein kinase, and Toll-like receptor signaling pathways, all of which are related to influenza A virus progression. Conclusions: Collectively, our results provided novel insights into the miRNA expression patterns of tracheal tissues from H5N1-infected Ri chickens. More importantly, our findings offer insights into the relationship between miRNA and immune-related target genes and the role of miRNA in HPAIV infections in chickens.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.13-16
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• 1992

Avian infectious bronchitis virus(IBV) was propagated in SPF eggs and purified by sucrose density gradient centrifugation in order to prepare the antigen. Several fusions were made between mouse myeloma cells and spleen cells from BALB/c mouse immunized with IBV antigen and two hybridoma clones producing specific monoclonal antibody(MCA) against the IBV were established. The MCAs were classified as IgG type and revealed no neutralizing and hemagglutination inhibition activity. Using the MCA IBV antigen was detected by IFA method in tracheal smears made from chickens infected with IBV during the experimental period of 10 days.