Innovative phenotyping strategies exploiting immune response to heat stress conditions

Evaluating the heat stress status of an animal is a challenge. Indeed, currently, the heat stress
status is determined on the basis of a significative change of a response variable known to be
correlated with a temperature-humidity related variable. These response variables are, most
often, milk yield or similar traits. However, it is known that heat stress has a negative effect on
the immune system, but this information is still very little used in the context of heat stress
phenotyping. Indeed, only a few studies highlight immune genes involved in heat stress. In
addition, these studies provide very little information on the molecular mechanisms that link
these genes to the observed phenotype. Immune response based deep-phenotyping strategy
would provide a more comprehensive understanding of heat stress and could also serve as a
basis for identifying heat stress indicators through genomics.