In a change from the broad focus of the first Zoetis-UCD2 Transatlantic One Health Alliance* funding call, the second call was launched with the specific theme of “Equine One Health”. The strategic focus was on equine health challenges across the continuum of care, from prediction and detection to prevention and treatment, and projects with input from diverse disciplines were particularly encouraged.
Ultimately, a jointed submission consisting of two related, but independent projects was funded. The labs of Professor Carrie Finno, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis, and Professor Grace Mulcahy, School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD, joined forces to study the interaction of horses with endemic parasitic helminths using precision techniques.
Horse-Helminth Interactions in Equine Metabolic Syndrome
Professor Carrie Finno is interested in the molecular basis for genetic diseases in the horse and other companion animals. As the director of the Center for Equine Health, she has been instrumental in the development of the Pioneer 100 horse health project, a first-of-its-kind precision medicine study in horses that is undertaking ‘deep longitudinal phenotyping’. Data collected on every member of the herd includes whole genome sequencing, metabolome, proteome and microbiome data, plasma sampling and blood typing, fecal egg counts etc.
The Pioneer 100 herd has been extensively phenotyped for Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS), a condition that occurs globally and shares many features with the analogous human condition. In humans, recent studies have focused on the role of gastrointestinal helminths and the development of diseases such as type II diabetes, obesity, and asthma. The host-helminth interaction in EMS has not been evaluated and may present a valuable large animal model.
Professor Finno and her group hypothesize that horses characterized as high strongyle (nematode worm) egg shedders will have lower risk of EMS and equine asthma. They aim to prospectively define nematode parasite interaction with EMS in the Pioneer 100 herd, and to evaluate the presence of equine asthma as a co-morbidity in horses with EMS in relation to their nematode status. In addition, they aim to comprehensively define host-helminth susceptibility in horses by integrated correlational analyses across phenotypic and multi-omics datasets.
Predicting the Phenotype of Helminth Susceptibility in Horses and Translational Applications
Professor Grace Mulcahy is a Full Professor of Veterinary Microbiology and Parasitology and her research focuses on host-pathogen interactions. Her group is actively involved in understanding how helminths interfere with protective immunity to bacterial infections. More recently her lab has been studying the interaction of equine small stronglyes with the equine bacterial gut microbiome, and with systemic and local inflammation.
In her research proposal, Professor Mulcahy notes that helminth infection of horses in a “steady state” favours an anti-inflammatory environment and a healthy gut microbiome. Conversely, disruption of this ecosystem, can, in genetically disposed individuals, predispose them to development of a range of acute or chronic diseases such as metabolic syndrome, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, which are also common in human populations where “industrialised” gut microbiota patterns are the norm.
In collaboration with investigators at UC Davis, building on the multi-omic data available for the Pioneer 100 herd, Professor Mulchay’s group aims to use a Systems Biology approach to investigate equine host-helminth interactions and related immune mediated and metabolic disease. They aim to retropectively analyse data available for the Pioneer 100 herd to establish trends of helminth infection and to augment this data by more detailed prospective parasitological data and faecal microbiota analysis. They also aim to define host parasite susceptibility in horses by integrated correlational analyses across phenotypic and multi-omic datasets.
These exciting studies are due to be completed in 2022.
Project Co-Investigators:
UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Callum Donnelly
UCD School of Veterinary Medicine
Assistant Professor Nicola Walshe
Associate Professor Vivienne Duggan
Associate Professor Annetta Zintl
Associate Professor Theo de Waal
Emma Golding (Research Administration)
UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science
Professor David MacHugh
*Read more about the Zoetis-UCD2 Transatlantic One Health Alliance here.