Gene-expression changes induced by Feline immunodeficiency virus infection differ in epithelial cells and lymphocytes

Infection of cats with Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is an important model for understanding comparative lentivirus biology. In vivo, FIV infects lymphocytes and monocyte/macrophages, but in vitro infection is commonly investigated in epithelial Crandell-Reese Feline Kidney (CRFK) cells. In this study, the transcriptional responses of CRFK cells and primary lymphocytes to infection with FIV 34TF, a cloned subtype A virus, and FIV USgaB01, a biological subtype B isolate, were determined. Reverse-transcribed mRNA from both cell types was hybridized to microarrays containing 1700 human expressed sequence tags in duplicate and data were analysed with Significance Analysis of Microarrays (sam) software. Results from six experiments assessing homeostatic cross-species hybridization excluded 3.48 % inconsistently detected transcripts. Analysis of data from five time points over 48 h after infection identified 132 and 24 differentially expressed genes in epithelial cells and lymphocytes, respectively. Genes involved in protein synthesis, the cell cycle, structure and metabolism were affected. The magnitude of gene-expression changes ranged from 0.62 to 1.62 and early gene induction was followed by downregulation after 4 h. Transcriptional changes in CRFK cells were distinct from those in lymphocytes, except for heat-shock cognate protein 71, which was induced at multiple time points in both cell types. These findings indicate that FIV infection induces transcriptional changes of a modest magnitude in a wide range of genes, which is probably reflective of the relatively non-cytopathic nature of virus infection.