miRNA profiling of primary lamb testicle cells infected with lumpy skin disease virus

In this study, miRNA profiling of cells infected with lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) was conducted for the first time. When compared to mock-infected cells, LSDV-infected primary lamb testicle (LT) cells showed dysregulation of 64, 85, and 85 miRNAs at 12 hours postinfection (hpi), 48 hpi, and 72 hpi, respectively. While some of these miRNAs were found to be dysregulated at a particular time point following LSDV infection, others were dysregulated at all three time points. Analysis of the differentially expressed miRNA-mRNA interaction networks, Gene Ontology analysis of the predicted targets, and KEGG analysis of highly enriched pathways revealed several cellular factors/pathways involved in protein/ion/enzyme binding, cell differentiation, movement of subcellular components, calcium reabsorption, aldosterone synthesis and secretion, and melanogenesis. Some selected upregulated (oar-mir-379-5p, oar-let-7d, Chr10-18769, Chr2_5162 and oar-miR-493-5p) and downregulated (ChrX-33741, Chr3_8257 and Chr26_32680) miRNAs were further confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR. These findings contribute to our understanding of virus replication, virus-host interactions, and disease pathogenesis, and the differentially expressed miRNAs and their cellular targets may serve as biomarkers as well as novel targets for therapeutic intervention against LSDV.