In-depth systems biological evaluation of bovine alveolar macrophages suggests novel insights into molecular mechanisms underlying infection.

Objective: Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic respiratory infectious disease of domestic livestock caused by intracellular infection, which causes ~$3 billion in annual losses to global agriculture. Providing novel tools for bTB managements requires a comprehensive understanding of the molecular regulatory mechanisms underlying the infection. Nevertheless, a combination of different bioinformatics and systems biology methods was used in this study in order to clearly understand the molecular regulatory mechanisms of bTB, especially the immunomodulatory mechanisms of infection.