Molecular immunology—gene regulation and signal transduction

Research on ‘molecular immunology—gene regulation and signal transduction’ in veterinary species is relatively new. The reason for its novelty is that until recently there have been very few tools with which we can work. Over the last 10 years the veterinary immunology community has succeeded in generating panels of defined monoclonal antibodies (mAb) and cloned genes that has enabled such work to be started. More recently, quantitative, high-resolution analytical tools for veterinary species have begun to be developed; some of these are specific for veterinary species and others have been adapted from human or rodent systems. Of the species-specific tools that have recently been developed perhaps the most widely used are the immunoassays for cytokines, RNAase protection assays (RPAs) and in the near future oligonucleotide and EST-based microarrays. This presentation will describe some of these assays and discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages.