Analysis of high-risk stocker cattle transcriptome associates clinical BRD with consistent inflammation-related pathways

Although bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is frequent and cost­ly in beef cattle operations, diagnosis of the disease complex is inaccurate. Metaphylactic use of antimicrobials effectively re­duces the risk of BRD, but antimicrobial administration may in­duce resistance. Therefore, this project was designed to identify differences in levels of transcribed gene expression driven by clinical BRD, both with and without administration of metaphy­laxis at-arrival in high-risk stocker cattle. Using RNA sequenc­ing, we aimed to identify predictive gene expression pathways at-arrival in cattle that developed BRD or not, characterize host genomic patterns in response to clinical BRD, and describe dif­ferences in gene expression of clinically diseased cattle based on treatment success and time of treatment within the study.