Genome-wide post-transcriptional regulation of bovine mammary gland response to Streptococcus uberis

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) as post-transcriptionally regulators of gene expression have been shown to be critical regulators to fine-tuning immune responses, besides their criteria for being an ideal biomarker. The regulatory role of miRNAs in responses to most mastitis-causing pathogens is not well understood. Gram-positive Streptococcus uberis (Str. uberis), the leading pathogen in dairy herds, cause both clinical and subclinical infections. In this study, a system biology approach was used to better understand the main post-transcriptional regulatory functions and elements of bovine mammary gland response to Str. uberis infection. Publicly available miRNA-Seq data containing 50 milk samples of the ten dairy cows (five controls and five infected) were retrieved for this current research. Functional enrichment analysis of predicted targets revealed that highly confident responsive miRNAs (4 up- and 19 downregulated …