Transcriptomic analysis reveals the host factor VCAM-1 affecting porcine delta coronavirus infection

Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is an emerging porcine coronavirus that causes acute watery diarrhea mainly in piglets. However, the mechanism of PDCoV infection is unclear, which hinders the development of new effective drugs and vaccines. In this study, host factors that involved in PDCoV infection were screened using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) based transcriptome analysis. Adhesion molecule, vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1), was selected from the differential genes. The expression of VCAM-1 was further verified by quantitative RT-PCR. It has also been validated in piglet challenge experiments. In the intestine mainly infected, VCAM-1 was detected to be significantly upregulated at the nucleic acid and protein levels. This indicates that VCAM-1 plays a role in the infection of PDCoV. These results help us to understand of the effects of PDCoV infection on host cells, providing a research basis for further screening of drug targets.