Figure 6.

Cytokine gene expression in vaccinated and challenged birds. Cecal tonsils collected on the day of necropsy were analyzed for the expression of different cytokine mRNA levels by qRT-PCR. The gene expression of (A) IL-1β, (B) TNF-α, (C) IL-10, and (D) TGF-β1. Fold change in gene expression was calculated after correcting for β-actin mRNA value and normalizing to the mRNA content of the mock group as 1. Data are presented as the mean ± SEM of 6 to 13 birds per group. Significant differences were determined by one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post-hoc test between each of the groups. Only significant differences are labelled in the figures (* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, and **** p < 0.0001).