Hepatic transcriptome study of Taenia asiatica infection in suckling pigs

Taenia asiatica is a crucial Taenia that is prevalent in East and Southeast Asia. Domestic pigs and wild boars are essential intermediate hosts for Taenia. Cysticercus larvae are mainly parasitic in the liver of domestic pigs. The Taenia asiatica was collected from Liangmu Township, Duyun City, Guizhou Province. Twelve Yorkshire Suckling pigs of 20 days of age were randomly divided into an experimental and control group of 6 pigs each. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) technology was used to detect the expression differences of the mRNA transcriptomes in the liver of the experimental and control group at different infection times. Differential genes were analyzed by bioinformatics and verified by Real Time-PCR(RT-PCR). On the 15th and 75th days after infection, 152 and 558 differentially expressed genes were detected in the liver of the experimental group, respectively, accounting for 0.85% and 3.12% of all identified transcribed RNA genes, respectively. Through GO and KEGG related bioinformatics analysis, it was found that these differentially expressed genes are involved in the immune response, material metabolism, fibrosis, and tissue proliferation and repair of suckling pig liver, and related to MHC antigen processing and presentation, cytochrome P450, transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) signaling pathway and so on. Cysticercus asiatica parasites cause significant differential gene expression in the liver of suckling pigs. Specific differentially expressed genes are involved in biological processes such as liver metabolism, immune response, and tissue repair or regeneration in suckling pigs. The immune evasion is related to the immuno-suppressive response of the intermediate host.