GSE122344
RNA-Seq-based transcriptome profiling of primary interstitial cells of Cajal derived from the small intestine of Merino sheep in response to bovine viral diarrhea virus infection
Infections with bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) contribute significantly to health-related economic losses in the beef and dairy industries and are widespread throughout the world. Severe acute BVDV infection is characterized by a gastrointestinal (GI) inflammatory response. The mechanism of inflammatory lesions caused by BVDV remains unknown. The interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) network plays a pivotal role as a pacemaker in the generation of electrical slow waves for GI motility, and it is crucial for the reception of regulatory inputs from the enteric nervous system. The present study investigated whether ICC were a good model for studying GI inflammatory lesions caused by BVDV infection. Primary ICC were isolated from the duodenum of Merino sheep. The presence of BVDV was detected in ICC grown for five passages after BVDV infection, indicating that BVDV successfully replicated in ICC. After infection with BVDV strain TC, the cell proliferation proceeded slowly or declined. Morphological changes, including swelling, dissolution, and formation of vacuoles, of ICC were observed, pointing to quantitative, morphological and functional changes of ICC. Therefore, RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed to investigate differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in BVDV-infected ICC and to further explore the molecular mechanism of underlying quantitative, morphological and functional changes of ICC. Eight hundred six genes were differentially expressed upon BVDV infection, of which 538 genes were upregulated and 268 genes were downregulated. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses showed that the 806 DEGs were significantly enriched in 27 pathways, including cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, interleukin (IL)-17 signaling, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. Finally, 21 DEGs were randomly selected, and the relative repression levels of these genes were tested using the quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) to validate the RNA-Seq results. The results showed that the related expression levels of 21 DEGs were similar to RNA-Seq. This study is the first to establish a new infection model for investigating GI inflammatory lesions induced by BVDV infection. Overall design: Transcriptome profiling of primary interstitial cells of Cajal derived from the small intestine of Merino sheep in response to bovine viral diarrhea virus infection generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina platform.