Transcriptome analysis of avian reovirus-mediated changes in gene expression of normal chicken fibroblast DF-1 cells

Avian reovirus (ARV) is an important poultry pathogen that can cause immunosuppression. In this study, RNA-Seq technology was applied to investigate the transcriptome-wide changes of DF-1 cells upon ARV infection at the middle stage.

Total RNA of ARV-infected or mock-infected samples at 10 and 18 h post infection (hpi) was extracted to build RNA-Seq datasets. Analysis of the sequencing data revealed that the expressions of numerous genes were altered, and a panel of differentially expressed genes were confirmed with RT-qPCR. At 10 hpi, 104 genes were down-regulated and 64 were up-regulated, while the expressions of 47 genes were increased and only one was down-regulated, which may play a role in retinoic acid biosynthesis, at 18 hpi in the ARV-infected cells. The similar profiles of up-regulated genes between the two groups of infected cells suggest that ARV infection activated a prolonged antiviral response of host cells. Alternative splicing analysis found no significantly changed events altered by ARV infection.

Overall, the differential expression profile presented in this study can be used to expand our understanding of the comprehensive interactions between ARV and the host cells, and may be helpful for us to reveal the pathogenic mechanism on the molecular level.